The eight questions business leaders put to NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman in Kiama
The event was noticeably quieter than Premier Chris Minns’ appearance at the same venue.
Business leaders once again gathered at Kiama Pavilion for an early morning meeting with some of NSW’s most senior politicians this week.
It may have been the same venue and the same organiser, but the atmosphere was noticeably quieter on Thursday, September 4, as Opposition Leader Mark Speakman, Shadow Treasurer Damien Tudehope and Shadow Minister for Fair Trading, Work Health and Safety and Building Tim James fronted Business Illawarra members.
With the Kiama by-election just nine days away, the forum offered an opportunity to hear how the Opposition would chart a different course from the current government.
As with last week’s coverage of Premier Chris Minns’ appearance at the same venue, we’ve followed a Q&A format to capture the exchange.
Note: Many of the answers have been truncated for clarity and readability.
Coralee McCarthy, Business Illawarra
Question:
“How does business get the whole story to the government rather than in bits and pieces?”
Answer from Leader of the Opposition Mark Speakman:
“You just need to keep tapping on our doors and being in our face. If you want to influence politicians, it's not enough to write letters. You've actually got to have meetings, you've got to be in people's faces. …keep lobbying, keep lobbying… and be in our face …”
Catherine Shields
Question:
“We really need the focus back on tourism here… Can you do something about getting cooperative marketing funding and Destination New South Wales funding back?”
Answer from Leader of the Opposition Mark Speakman:
“Frankly, you deserve better. That cut was probably made without any notice, consultation, or explanation. They're penny-pinching, blowing the budget already on public sector wage rises and union demands.
“Tourism is such a driver for success here in New South Wales. We understand that, and that's why during our time in government, we made significant strides, investments, projects and programs for destination New South Wales.
“We want New South Wales to be a big magnet for people, for investment, for events, for forums, and so much more. We want to see that across our great state. We appreciate that it is particularly important for regional areas like this one. So, I'm sorry that that happened.”
Follow-up answer from Shadow Minister for Fair Trading, Work Health and Safety and Building, Tim James
“Sometimes you have to spend money and make money. What you spend on destination branding, you probably get many more dollars back.
“Another example would be Business Connect. It's helped 60,000 small businesses with eight hours of free advice. The modelling from Treasury shows that for every dollar you spend, you get $1.50 back.
“Businesses that use Business Connect have 1/12th of the insolvency rate of the other businesses, so it works.”
Renee Knight, CEO of CareSouth
Question:
“I want to talk about workers' compensation. It's going to break us. We sat here last week with your counterparts, obviously, Labor.
“We were told categorically that over the next three years, regardless of your cost of claims going up, we're going to see in the for-purpose space potentially a 90 per cent increase in workers' compensation.
“We can't sustain that. We were also told that your party is blocking any type of reform in this space. My question to you is, what are you going to do?”
Answer from Shadow Treasurer, Damien Tudehope:
“Can I urge you to do the opposite? You should be saying to them: ‘Why is it going this way?’
“The problem we have with the government's legislation is that they seek to solve that problem by taking benefits away from people with serious injuries. What they are proposing to do is leave the threshold for continuing entitlement at the 31 per cent of whole of person impairment.
“The evidence we heard in an inquiry was that anyone who has a whole of person in impairment relating to psychosocial injury between 20 and 30 per cent has no capacity to work. Now, effectively, what the government is doing is taking the benefits away from those people.
“Our approach has been you look at the front end of workers' compensation, that is, when people are actually making a claim for stress, burnout, harassment, whatever those claims are. I'll bet in this room, the experience of people is that potentially someone goes under a performance review, and the next day they're on workers' compensation. They've made a claim because of the stress that you have placed them under, because you want to run your business better.
“We say that's the point where you've got to be addressing the pressure on this scheme to get people back to work more quickly.
“There is a much easier way to do this, and that is in fact address psychosocial injuries in a manner which doesn't penalise really badly injured people, but in fact gives businesses much more of a say in the workers' compensation process, and that is getting people back to work more quickly, but also giving businesses more of a say in relation to the workers' compensation process.”
Melissa Matters, Deputy Mayor of Kiama Council
Question:
“How do we get the state government to listen to local councils on unlocking land?”
Answer from Leader of the Opposition Mark Speakman:
“The best indicator of future performance is past performance. The investment in infrastructure in this region was unparalleled, with the Princes Highway and the two major hospitals. I think that's a pretty strong demonstration of our commitment to this region.
“In terms of knocking on doors and getting governments to listen to unlock land, well, we said we would unlock the Spring Creek Precinct for you if in government, and we've called on the current government to do that.
“We have to seize every opportunity we can to unlock land available for housing or for employment.”
Erica Warren, Kiama Councillor
Question:
“We have our harbour revitalisation plan ready to go. How can you help us get that plan in action?”
Answer from Shadow Minister for Fair Trading, Work Health and Safety and Building, Tim James
“We would humbly suggest that we have a big vision for the way that we would deliver for the people of New South Wales.
“My overall view in relation to that is that you'll never get that sort of plan up if you don't have a government with vision.
“This is a visionary project which you are saying to government, come on the ride with us, come on the journey with us, because this is something which will enhance the benefit of this area and the tourism impact that this particular area can have.”
Crystal Brandon, Shoalhaven Business Chamber
Question:
“We have an ageing population … I want to hear more about that stamp duty concession. People over 65 shouldn’t have to pay stamp duty at all if they’re downsizing.”
Answer from Leader of the Opposition Mark Speakman:
“The general direction we want to drive is to have those concessions. It's not just a handout for boomers, or ageing boomers. It has a flow and effect throughout the whole real estate market. You free up those homes for families with kids, then you've got less demand for new homes and other homes.”
Terri Anderson, Kells Lawyers
Question:
“I drive to Wollongong to work and from Kiama most mornings. It can take me an hour, and I opt not to use the freeway because of the traffic. How do the infrastructure programs go from being celebrated, to being built, to not being a set and forget?”
Answer from Leader of the Opposition Mark Speakman:
“You've just got to keep investing in the infrastructure rather than what the government is doing. You can't just cut the ribbons on projects of the previous government and then say business as usual. You've just got to keep building and building more infrastructure.”
Amanda Winks, CEO Housing Trust
Question:
“How do you see the role of social and affordable housing as part of the critical fabric of social infrastructure?”
Answer from Shadow Treasurer, Damien Tudehope:
“A big lever that planning has in its favour is the ability to give a give increased density in relation to delivering the social outcomes that it wants.
“There are massive opportunities to be able to talk to developers in terms of delivering more social infrastructure. Now, the problem that we see at the moment, there's a lot of talk about this, but the big problem which the government doesn't address is that housing isn't being built because builders can't make a buck.
“Our approach to delivering social and affordable housing would probably be identical to the government's, but it is based on making projects stack up.”