Adjournment Debate 22 May 2013 – Backing Burleigh Business

23 May 2013 11:25 AMMichael Hart

Mr HART (Burleigh—LNP) (12.13 am): Following on from the speech of the member for Pine Rivers, I point out that small business is a very important part of my electorate as well. Some 6,197 businesses are located in the Burleigh electorate. Of those, 5,964 are small businesses. Some 22 per cent of that number are in the construction industry, 13 per cent in real estate, 11 per cent in professional and technical services and seven per cent in retail. As indicated, 22 per cent of my local businesses are in the construction industry. Every morning we see a precession of utes leaving the Gold Coast. We need to do something about that. They are heading to more productive areas like Ipswich.

Mr Berry interjected.

Mr HART: I congratulate the member for Ipswich and the Ipswich council for their activities in their area.

It is important that we get those businesses back working on the Gold Coast and we stop those utes going up the highway. We are working towards—

Mr Dowling interjected.

Mr HART: Or going to the Redlands. We are working very closely with the council in order to get some of these utes off the highway and their businesses working in Burleigh. I am working closely with developers and businesspeople in my electorate—in Palm Beach, Burleigh, Miami, Mermaid Beach, Varsity Lakes and parts of Robina—to get this happening.

On 9 May the Minister for Small Business, Tourism, Major Events and the Commonwealth Games—and I deliberately put small business first—and I held a business forum at the Currumbin RSL. We had a packed audience with representatives from about 100 small businesses. We heard from them their issues and the sorts of red tape that we could look at trimming back on their behalf.

It is important to note that Burleigh is home to about 1.4 per cent of all businesses in Queensland. The people there on that night were representative of Burleigh and Currumbin businesses. I say thank you very much to the Minister for Small Business, Tourism, Major Events and the Commonwealth Games for supporting those businesses. It is important to recognise that a lot of those businesses took buy local stickers home with them on the day and are now proudly displaying them on all of the businesses in James Street and in the Stockland and other shopping centres in Burleigh.

You can view the footage here.