Date posted: February 27, 2015

Robin_Buckham_FBA_CEO

Dear FBAers,

The new year has kicked off with enthusiasm at FBA, as I’m sure it has at your place!

Planning is well advanced for each State Conference and for the National Conference on the Gold Coast in August; I suggest you plan your well-earned post winter break around this fabulous learning and networking event. This year we have a shorter, tighter program so you don’t lose as much time out of your business, with some specialist Master Classes for those with particular interests.

I should mention that we have some limited spaces in our Forum Groups in some states; these groups are support networks which meet 10 times a year with a facilitator and act as business problem solvers and ideas generators for those involved. Some groups have been meeting for 15 years! Talk to your State Manager if you’d like to know more.

On the advocacy front, we have some new connections in Canberra that our members may find useful. The Productivity Commission is enquiring into Business Set –up, Transfer and Closure, and is particularly keen to hear from businesses that have fallen victim to competitive neutrality issues. This is where a government agency sets up in the same business as a commercial enterprise and undercuts them; or perhaps their presence means you cannot expand your business to the area in the way you would like. One example might be a prison setting up a printery, with cheaper labour and equipment, which undercuts the printers in the area. Let me know if you have a similar issue and I will raise it with government.

The Australian Tax Office (ATO) is also keen to hear from Family Businesses on issues they’d like addressed in this newsletter, or by other means. Let me know! The ATO is particularly proud of their new Super Stream arrangements which make it sooo much easier for businesses to remit super for their employees by making one payment to the Tax Office who distribute the payments for you. Here at FBA we are enthusiastic users of the new system and recommend it; you can learn more here.

Robin Buckham
1800 249 357
rbuckham@fambiz.org.au