May 2015
TALKING TAX REFORM WITH JOHN HEWSON ISSUE 240
BUSINESS NEWS | 2
CONTENTS
16.
COVER STORY
CONTENTS 5 Biz News 10 New Appointments 11 Inside Word 14 Tax Experts
12. FEATURE
“The difference between death and taxes is death doesn’t get worse every time the parliament meets.”
22 Legal 27 Business Advice 28 Competition 30 Elevator
40.
34 Tech Guy
32. ARTS
36 Volunteers
ISSUE 240 APRIL 2015
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EDITOR
WHY POLITICIANS MAKE FOR POOR PLANNERS
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nfrastructure. From the East-West Link to the West Gate Distributor to the Metro Rail Link to the removal of metropolitan rail level crossing to the North South Pipeline to the desalination plant … Victoria has a dismal record on infrastructure planning and procurement. The problem? Ego, basically. Our politicians have put themselves in a position of making themselves large-scale project planners without the requisite skills, experience or the critical benefit of distance and we’ve encouraged them to continue to do so by celebrating their clearly hastily developed headlineseeking announcements. State governments live and die by big projects, just ask Dennis Napthine. Here we had a very capable, very competent politician brought down by a stubborn adherence to poorly planned, hard to like projects. The East-West Link is the obvious one, but it was tied into the same bundle as the proposed deep-water port at Hastings – after all, that’s why the east section was the focus, to create a truck route to Hastings, rather than the western section, to alleviate traffic congestion on the West Gate Bridge. The creation of an east-west alternative across the Yarra River is needed, and will increasingly be needed in Melbourne. But this project was a poor answer from the beginning. It wasn’t the priority of Infrastructure Australia for a reason, and while those of us who sit in traffic trying to get from Geelong to Melbourne would dearly love a better way, this project had all the promise of becoming our next desal plant.
infrastructure we not only need now, but also will come to need over the next forty years. We have, with our collective ‘me, my and now’ demands pushed politics into short-term policy platforms, and continue to demand results within an electoral term. The political cycle is not change any time soon and it was the great hope of Infrastructure Australia that a collective of project and planning experts could take the spin out of the project cycle. And it almost got there too, before it was hijacked by a federal government demanding road above rail projects, with the honourable bums on seats not interested in namby pamby public transport. The days of ‘roads win elections’ have gone, just ask the previous Victorian Government. We, the voting public do, recognise the need for effective public transport and will vote for it in ever increasing numbers. And while the proposal for a state-based independent project assessment body, Infrastructure Victoria, and another statutory body to deliver projects effectively and efficiently, Projects Victoria, could actually work, the question is not could they, but would they be allowed to by successive governments, both state and federal? Even bipartisan political support in Victoria can be swept aside by federal infrastructure funding being put in a locked box, with the key only to be brought out for pet projects. We need infrastructure funding to be directed to the soundest projects, period.
But Dr Napthine wasn’t alone. Both the desalination plant and North South Pipeline of the previous Labor state government were appallingly ego-driven, poorly planned and projects that, like East West Link, failed to deliver both transparency and effective consultation and they sent John Brumby to the electoral guillotine as well.
For independent bodies such as Infrastructure Victoria, Projects Victoria and Infrastructure Australia to do what we need them to do, they need a stronger voice. The ones who are in the position to give these bodies that stronger voice are the very ones who they would be trying to shout over, our politicians. At some point, our elected representatives need to take the high road, to make the big call of removing themselves and those that will fill their seats from making the big calls.
Poor projects are the not the result of poor politics, they are the inevitable result of politicians being in over their heads. And while we can’t realistically expect to take the politics out of big infrastructure planning, much as we might like to, what we should be focused on is removing the vagaries of politics out of our forward infrastructure planning. We blame our pollies when they get it wrong, but have put them in a position where they are doomed to fail. Four, or even eight years, is not even close to the long-term perspective that is needed to successfully plan for the
Because the point is that it shouldn’t be about road or rail, public or private, tunnel or bridge, bikes or cars, when it comes to the big picture of how our state infrastructure works, about the big projects that will shape the future of our cities, our state and our nation, it should be about what needs to be done and how best to get it done in the public interest. They can do it in London with the monolithic Crossrail, they can do it in Rome and Birmingham and Lyon, in Toronto and in Singapore, why can’t we get the big stuff done here too?
DAVINA MONTGOMERY BUSINESS NEWS | 4
BIZ NEWS
DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO LEAD FOR GEELONG?
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he search is on for the next generation of community leaders, with recruitment underway for the 2015/2017 Leaders for Geelong (LfG) program.
Committee for Geelong CEO, Rebecca Casson, said the Committee was looking for a broad range of professional applicants eager to build their leadership capabilities and develop their skills and networks. “As Geelong transforms, it is vital that the next generation of leaders is consistently cultivated and that is what the Leaders for Geelong program aims to do,” Ms Casson said. “One of the major elements of the program is the team-based project work, which focuses on issues of social, economic and environmental importance to transforming Geelong.” A Surf Centre of Excellence project that highlights the potential economic benefits of leveraging the strong relationship with tourism in the region, an Eastern Park project to showcase and stimulate interest in further developing Geelong’s Eastern Park and a Barwon Produce Map project connecting producers with consumers and showcasing their products, are just some of the most recent ideas developed by Geelong’s future leaders.
A recent evaluation report conducted by Deakin University found that the LfG program was seen by participants as very beneficial to employers in relation to growing their networks, promoting the individual and personal development of the participant as a staff member, as well as developing their understanding of the region and community. “As we approach the program’s 10 year anniversary in 2016, this intake of Leaders will be part of that significant milestone,” Ms Casson said. And on a visit to Geelong last month, the Minister for Regional Development, Jaala Pulford, made an announcement that secured the continuation of funding to support the Leaders for Geelong program. The Leaders program was one of 10 regional Victorian leadership programs to share in $8 million of funding under the 2015/16 Victorian Budget. For more information on the Leaders for Geelong program visit the website: www.committeeforgeelong.com.au/leaders-for-geelong
Ms Casson said an often overlooked benefit of the program was the opportunity to gain two un-specified credit points towards a relevant Masters program from Deakin University’s Business School. “This is an important way of demonstrating the educational merit of Leaders for Geelong, particularly for people unfamiliar with leadership programs,” Ms Casson said.
BIZNEWSMAG.COM.AU | 5
BIZ NEWS
GLOBAL GROWTH: THE NEED FOR A PARADIGM SHIFT
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pril saw the members of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank gather in Washington for spring meetings. In the lead up to these gatherings of monetary heavyweights, the B20 Coalition, which brings together leading independent industry associations and business organizations from G20 countries and represents 6.8 million businesses of all sizes and from all sectors, released its Global Business Outlook 2015 (GBO 2015). Acknowledging that economic recovery is proceeding at a modest pace and that, of late, the global economic landscape has been marred by skewed global output, geopolitical crises, divergent cross-country performances, subdued investments, soft commodity prices and slow growth in world trade, the B20 points to the drop in oil prices, the volatility in exchange rates (strengthening of the US dollar, not only against the euro but also other currencies), and the monetary policy stances (particularly those of the Federal Reserve System, US, and the European Central Bank) as decisive factors that would guide economic actions and determine the future course of business growth.
and dynamic force, operating not just at the international cutting edge, but also with a global scale and reach. The potential of this global network needs to be taken into account in G20 policy making.” The B20 Coalition members are: Ai Group, Australia; BDI, Germany; BUSA, South Africa; BUSINESSEUROPE, Europe; CBI, United Kingdom; CCC, Canada; CII, India; CNI, Brazil; Confindustria, Italy; FKI, South Korea; MEDEF, France; TÜSAD, Turkey; UIA, Argentina; and the US Chamber, USA
The GBO 2015 notes that global economic growth is threatened by high political risks and uncertainties posed by conflicts in East Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, by the fragility in the global labor market and by rising protectionism among the G20 countries. President of the B20 Coalition, Perrin Beatty, said, “The situation necessitates urgent implementation of committed policy measures by the governments of G20 nations to address structural reforms, fiscal adjustments, monetary policy, labor reforms, trade facilitation, and technology promotion. “Government must transition to being a catalyst, nurturing an enabling environment, where large corporations, SMEs and small self-employed entrepreneurs can all flourish.” The B20 Coalition also underlines the contribution of the private sector to the recovery by creating jobs, innovating, and investing; with President Beatty adding, “Driven by an increasingly open and liberalized structure, the private sector has matured into a vibrant
BUSINESS NEWS | 6
BIZ NEWS
VECCI BACKS METRO RAIL PROJECT
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h, infrastructure … we need it, we need it to work, we want it, but we don’t want it in our backyards and we’re not overly fond of how much it costs us … While it may be a seemingly endless source of public and political discourse (well, we diss projects and their pushers, often in a pretty course way) big infrastructure will play a key role in the economies of Victoria as a state and Australia as a nation across the coming decades, so it was nice to read an email that effectively said, ‘Yay. This project is happening and we think that’s a good thing.’ VECCI Chief Executive, Mark Stone, was welcoming the progression of the Melbourne Metro Rail Project and the preferred CBD route. “Melbourne Metro will significantly enhance the capacity of Melbourne’s transport system and create employment, with 3500 jobs to be created during peak construction,” Mr Stone commented. The employer peak body urged the Government to work closely with businesses to keep the impact on the CBD’s retail and professional services businesses, as well as the movement of goods and services in affected areas of the city, to a minimum. “We welcome the announcement that the Melbourne Metro Rail Authority will consult with stakeholders, including Swanston Street traders, this year,” he said, highlighting the importance of the rail network to commuters head in to and out from the city. Mr Stone urged the State Government to fund the ‘important rail capacity-building project’, along with other ‘major job-creating capital works’ in the May Budget. “It is also important that a project of this magnitude and longterm importance to Victoria be progressed from this early stage with the support of the Opposition, the Greens and independent parliamentarians,” he said. Wouldn’t it be nice if the next email said, ‘Whoo hoo, we’ve got the cash to build it’? Sometimes you just have to take the small moments of happiness where you find them…
THE PRICE OF INFLUENCE
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oney = power, it’s hardly an original sentiment but have you wondered just how much money it takes to open some of the world’s most powerful doors? The answer, when those doors are to certain offices in Washington D.C., is A LOT. In the U.S. of A. the 2015 first quarter federal lobbying disclosure reports reveal just who is spending the most to lobby Congress and federal agencies. Below, drawn from MapLight’s Federal Lobbying Database, is a list of the top ten organizations and their federal lobbying spend between January 1, 2015, and March 31, 2015: Chamber of Commerce of the U.S.A. $13,800,000 National Association of Realtors $7,700,000 American Medical Association $6,720,000 U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform $5,720,000 Google, Inc. $5,470,000 (the most it has ever spent in one quarter) Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America $5,440,000 General Electric Company $4,750,000 National Association of Broadcasters $4,720,000 American Electric Power Company, Inc. and affiliated corporations $4,685,670 American Hospital Association $4,630,000 (Data Source: Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives)
BIZNEWSMAG.COM.AU | 7
BIZ NEWS
$79 BILLION: AUSTRALIA’S DIGITAL ECONOMY GROWS AND GROWS
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“The challenge now is to ensure that we don’t take our foot off the accelerator, because the health of the digital economy will be critical to Australia’s future prosperity.”
When Deloitte Access Economics first calculated the size of the internet economy for Google in its landmark The Connected Continent report in 2011, the $50 billion figure was forecast to grow to $70 billion by 2016.
Deloitte Access Economics partner and report co-author, Ric Simes, said, “The sweeping impact of the internet is more than well documented, but until 2011 at least, the economic value of all things digital was less well understood.
But this has been well and truly passed. Using the latest, although not strictly comparable, methodology for 2013-14, The Connected Continent II report finds that the digital economy is growing in significance, and is 50% larger in real terms than the 2011 estimate.
“When we first calculated the value of the internet economy in 2011, we all knew it was growing rapidly, but just as technology and levels of connectivity have evolved, so has the value of digital to the Australian economy.
And, not only is it growing, it’s rapidly changing how businesses and the Australian economy operate. Other report findings include:
“We have expanded and updated our earlier analysis and the evidence is clear that digital technologies are driving massive economic change and disruption and also help Australia respond to the national challenge of maintaining growth in living standards and productivity.”
ustralia’s rapidly growing digital economy has been valued at $79 billion, and 5.1% of GDP – bigger than traditional industry sectors such as agriculture, retail and transport.
$139 billion – the forecast value of the digital economy by 2020 (7.3% of GDP) $45 billion – additional size of the Australian economy in 2013, including the positive impact of digital technologies on productivity $75 billion – consumer benefits in terms of greater choice and convenience driven by digital 450,000 – information and communications technology (ICT) specialists employed in organisations across Australia (4% of total employment) 2.5 million – employees in the OECD’s (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) ‘broad’ definition of ICT workers, which also includes intensive users of ICTs (22% of the workforce)
The report also looks at how businesses are increasingly using digital and social to not only connect with their customers, but to drive internal transformational change via the next wave of related technologies such as the cloud, data analytics, and machine-tomachine technologies. “The digital economy is changing from being a standalone industry to being embedded in businesses across the economy,” Simes said.
Managing Director of Google Australia and New Zealand, Maile Carnegie, said, “The internet could have been purpose-built for Australia. It has connected us with the world, given us new opportunities to export our smarts, and now it’s helping our businesses transform to meet the needs of today’s consumers.
“In 2011, we estimated that the internet contributed about $27 billion in the form of increased productivity in Australia in one year. Using an updated model, we now estimate that the economy was about $45 billion bigger in 2013 than it otherwise would have been because of the productivity impacts of digital technologies.
“It’s getting harder and harder to separate the digital economy from the rest of our economy, which can only be a positive, because it means technology is being embraced everywhere from healthcare to education, from agriculture to the delivery of government services.
“Higher productivity means Australia has greater output for its inputs to production via the likes of increased competition, reduced prices, greater business efficiencies, and innovation for better goods and services.”
BUSINESS NEWS | 8
BIZ NEWS
GEELONG BUSINESS BOOT CAMP
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o where near as terror and pain-inducing as the fitness kind, the Geelong Business Boot Camp has been developed as a series of workshops, coordinated by Enterprise Geelong, along with project partners BayFM and the Geelong Advertiser, to give employers the help they need to start employing. Finding and keeping the right staff is integral to the success of any business, and staff is a big investment for businesses and organisations of all sizes. Understanding how to attract and retain the right people into your business is what this Australian Government-funded program is all about. So, get your recruitment boots on and move it, move it to the Geelong Business Boot Camp throughout May.
WHAT’S ON OFFER?
Tuesday 26th May @ 9.00am (Free) Find the right staff – Who is that you actually need? Wednesday 27th May @ 5.00pm (Free) Employer obligations – Is your checklist complete? Thursday 28th May @ 4.00pm (Free) Managing Performance – Get the best out of your staff Monday 1st June @ 2.00pm (Free) Recruiting – Getting It Right! Wednesday 3rd June @ Midday ($25) Leadership and Culture: Be a great leader in your business & build the team you need
FREE VOUCHER: Boot camp attendees are entitled to a voucher for a free one-hour mentoring session with a specialist Business Advisor, Human Resources Professional or Employment Law Expert.
Tuesday 19th May @ 7.30am (cost $15) The Secret of My Success: How we got where we are now Thursday 21st May @ 5.30pm (Free) Need help in your business? Not sure if you can afford it? Friday 22nd May @ 9.00am (Free) Government Assistance – What’s available to get staff into your business?
Get active: secure your place online today at www.geelongbusinessbootcamp.com.au
BIZNEWSMAG.COM.AU | 9
NEW APPOINTMENTS
BAVERAS BRASSERIE PAUL WEST – RESTAURANT MANAGER
Paul has a wealth of knowledge and experience within the hospitality industry that spans 23 years. After eight years as the Bar Manager at the Wool Exchange Hotel, Paul moved across to EMC Group Geelong as Venue Manager of Black Sheep Café and Lambys Bar, both of which he successfully managed until 2010, when his expertise was required at the newly purchased local pub, the Gold Diggers Arms Hotel. After four amazing years at the “Diggers” Paul was again snatched away to capitalise on his years of experience to captain the beautiful Baveras Brasserie floating on the end of Cunningham Pier. “One of the things that I have prided myself on in all of the businesses that I have managed is to make sure the venue is accessible to all people, to make all people welcome. I have always wanted people to feel like, if you spend regular time in my restaurant, then you become family.” An avid and extensive traveller, Paul brings a world view of food and wine to the stunning over-water Baveras restaurant, saying, “food and wine are amazing conduits to link people from all over the world, to sit and share stories and to learn from and about one another. “Good food and wine doesn’t need to be too serious, there is enough of that in our lives. The best meals are often ones just shared with friends with great conversation and enjoying amazing fresh food and wine done simply.”
FINANCIAL ADVICE
LEGAL
Damian McVilly has been appointed Head of Financial Advisory services at Crowe Horwath working with a team of 25 staff. Having recently relocated to the Geelong region, Damian has been a Principal with Crowe Horwath for 10 years and worked there for 16 years. He has a wealth of experience advising on investments, wealth creation strategies, share trading, financial and retirement planning, tax minimisation strategies and superannuation.
Nicholas Redman is a Senior Lawyer in Coulter Roache Lawyers¹ Property & Development department. Nicholas is a graduate of Deakin University having obtained a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Laws. As a Senior Associate in the world renowned Finance, Real Estate and Projects department of a top tier global law firm, Nicholas worked on headline transactions for prominent domestic and international clients.
BUSINESS NEWS | 10
LEGAL Fiona Wilson joined Coulter Roache’s Corporate and Commercial team in March 2015, after ten years working at Ernst & Young and Deloitte in Melbourne. Fiona holds a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Commerce and is experienced in taxation consulting, specialising in providing advice in relation to Employment Taxes and GST matters.
INSIDE WORD
Image courtesy Tourism Greater Geelong and the Bellarine
WHITFORD’S SEA CHANGE It started with a cold call. Tom Butters had spent the last couple years selling some of Melbourne’s finest properties around Albert Park, Middle Park and Port Melbourne at Cayzer real estate. He put in a probing call to Dale Whitford about a city property he remembered Dale had owned to see if he was interested in selling. It turns out the property had been sold 15 years ago, but in that time Dale had developed his boutique agency in Newtown, established a second office in Torquay headed up by Michael Ferris and was looking to expand the business into the coastal haven of Barwon Heads and Ocean Grove.
The real estate market in the Bellarine’s beach towns has shifted considerably over the past decade, with the old shacks on water view blocks making way for high value, architectural homes. This boutique market is what the Whitford business model has been founded on, and the newly opened Barwon Heads office, with its prime shop frontage on Hitchcock Avenue, completes the triangle of the region’s most prestigious property hot spots.
For Tom, born and raised down that way, it was an opportunity too good to pass up, and he traded the hustle of the city for the relaxed lifestyle of the beautful Bellarine as Director of the newly established Whitford Barwon Heads. “From a business perspective, Dale was finding that lot of those high end Newtown and Geelong properties were being sold by people who were making the move to Barwon Heads and Ocean Grove. He wanted to be able to service those people at the other end of the transaction as well. We felt people around the area probably needed a bit more choice, and Whitford offers a service-focused, professional boutique agency,” Tom said.
BIZNEWSMAG.COM.AU | 11
FEATURE
TAKE A STAND: BREAKING THE SILENCE ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
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he 5th of May marked the official launch of a workplace program in Geelong that is aiming to break the cycle of violence against women. The Take A Stand program has begun its roll out into businesses and organisations across the region, delivered by Women’s Health and Wellbeing Barwon South West. Fully tested and evaluated throughout its five-year development, this is a program that has been proven to work in one of the state’s most male-dominated industries - because violence is both predictable and preventable. The Take A Stand program works with businesses to change attitudes and behaviours that support violence against women. Developed by Women’s Health Victoria, the program is informed by research that links sexist attitudes to violence against women. By partnering with workplaces, this fully funded program is delivered free of charge to businesses, with two facilitators – one male and one female – presenting three 45-minute sessions, spaced on average three to four weeks apart. There would be few ‘blokier’ workplaces than Linfox here in Victoria, and while it may seem an unlikely place to develop a program aimed at changing the cultural norms behind which violence has hidden, that is exactly what happened. Years before the Victorian and Federal Governments caught up, it was Linfox
that stepped up to the challenge of hauling the issue of domestic violence out of the shadows as a partner in the ‘Working Together Against Violence’ project. Women’s Health Victoria developed the project in 2007 and approached Linfox to partner with them in building a program that would deliver some key messages about violence against women and children in a way that worked for employees and businesses. What was initially planned to run for around two years extended to five, and the result is Take A Stand, an evidence-based, rigorously tested program specifically designed for workplaces. This had to be a program that would work for men and women because this isn’t a women’s issue, or a men’s issue, or a family issue or a matter for the police and community services, it’s everyone’s issue. Why take the campaign against domestic violence into workplaces? In the same way that the campaign against racial vilification in the AFL spurred broader community change (although there remains much work to be done on stamping out racism), the extended networks we build around workplaces can be powerful avenues of cultural change, and real action on the issue of violence requires real cultural change.
BUSINESS NEWS | 12
FEATURE THE STATISTICS ARE CLEAR: •A lmost every week in Australia a woman is killed by a partner or ex-partner •O f all Australian women who have had an intimate partner, more than a third have experienced violence from a partner or expartner •R eports of family violence incidents to Victoria Police are on the rise • I ntimate partner violence is the highest risk factor of death, disability or illness in Victorian women under the age of 45 – more than smoking, obesity, heart disease, cancer and high blood pressure. (VicHealth) •V iolence against women and children is estimated to cost the Australian economy in the order of $13.6 billion per annum, with the bill around $3.4 billion in Victoria alone. •T he most consistent predictors of domestic violence are the unequal distribution of power and resources between men and women and a man’s agreement with sexist, patriarchal and/ sexually hostile attitudes. (VicHealth) •M ore than 50 per cent of people believe that a woman could leave a violent relationship if she really wanted to. (VicHealth) •T wo-thirds of women who report domestic violence are in paid employment. “From a business perspective, if you can support someone in disengaging from a violent relationship, then not only do you reduce costs in terms of your turnover of staff, but you have also built a real connection and twoway relationship with your staff that is really important,” says Women’s Health Barwon South West Executive Director, Emily Lee-Ack.
In fact, it’s exactly the same kind of jokes, casual remarks or ‘private comments’ that we now recognise as racial vilification. We know racist comments and jokes support racism, and, in the same way, sexist comments and jokes support violence against women. And we’ve all heard them. Then there was former Socceroos coach Holger Osieck’s off-the-record comment, loosely translated as “women should shut up in public” that made international headlines in 2013. The issue of domestic violence is not about violence alone, it’s about the attitudes and behaviours that support violence, even if it is unwittingly. What Take A Stand does to talk about the kind of culture you want to see in your workplace and empowering people to speak up when they hear comments that make them or others uncomfortable. The Take A Stand program has been running in the Barwon South West region for a little over six months now, and more then 1500 people have already taken part in the program. Ms Lee-Ack says that’s a significant number of people who now have a much more sophisticated understanding of this issue and, if there was someone in their life who was experiencing violence, they would know where to send them for help and how to support them. “Being able to build that critical mass of people who have a much stronger understanding of this issue is just another reason why workplaces are key to breaking the cycle of violence, because you can have an audience who can not only change that workplace culture, but who can take that knowledge and understanding to their sporting clubs, to their faith groups, to their circle of friends and family and to any other part of the community they are engaged with,” she said.
“Intimate partner violence is the highest risk factor of death, disability or illness in Victorian women under the age of 45 – more than smoking, obesity, heart disease, cancer and high blood pressure.” - Vic Health
People who use violence in their relationships are invariably trying to control their partner, and a less obvious, although no less insidious part of their behaviour is trying to reduce their partner’s social participation, and that includes work. “The kind of fear and shame that people experiencing violence have felt historically has meant that for many it has seemed easier to leave their job rather than it is to say to their manager or employer that they are being threatened or stalked or have had to take out an AVO (Apprehended Violence Order) against a former partner/partner/parent of their children,” Ms Lee-Ack said. “Trying to create environments where it’s okay for people to have that conversation also reduces the ongoing risk for people who are living with violence or with the threat of violence.” The Take A Stand program is not aimed at encouraging people to intervene in potentially murderous situations, but is focused on modelling respectful relationships between men and women, about the kinds of conversations that we have in the tea rooms, at lunch breaks, in team meetings, and how they support or inhibit violence in the community more generally. The Take A Stand program is providing tools and confidence for everyone to be a bystander and speak up against behavior supporting violence against women.
Nathalie Davis is the Project coordinator for Women’s Health and Wellbeing Barwon South West and says there is overwhelming feedback from those who have taken part in the Take A Stand program that more workplaces should do the same. “When we go in to deliver the workplace program, we are not only doing the training for the staff, we are also here to support them in making changes to their workplace policies in relation to domestic violence, because some organisations don’t have any policies in relation to that, or they might have one that needs to be reviewed and then promoted to staff. The other element of the program is to provide a list of services that are available in the region for people who are victims of domestic violence” she said. While the program is delivered at no cost to the businesses and organisations that take part, the size and the structure of the workplaces are determinant factors for them to be able to implement the program. “There’s no question that this program works and there’s no question that it is effective in not only changing behaviours but also contributing really positively to a conversation about the prevention of violence against women in the broader community,” Ms Lee-Ack said. More information on the Take A Stand program is available on the Women’s Health Victoria website or contact the Take A Stand Barwon South West team on 03 5500 5490.
DAVINA MONTGOMERY BIZNEWSMAG.COM.AU | 13
TAX EXPERTS
With a wealth of experience, knowledge and trust, these Tax Experts will ensure your business is on track 365 days of the year. After all, taxation for business does not just mean EOFY returns!
New Principal Expert Tax Advisor It is with great pleasure that we announce the appointment of
Brad Ivens as a Principal in our Tax Advisory team. A Geelong Brad Ivens works in the Tax Team at Crowe Horwath to local, Brad brings 17 years experience in Melbourne with help understand and resolve complex Ernstclients & Youngtoand KPMG. He advises clients on all of theirissues business and personal tax affairs, and particularly superannuation relating to their business and personal tax affairs. Brad structuring and compliance. brings 17 years of experience in Melbourne with Ernst 5224 7700 &Tel Young and KPMG, where he worked with a broad L1, 200 Malop Street, Geelong spectrum of clients ranging from family businesses to geelong@crowehorwath.com.au large corporate groups and superannuation funds. www.crowehorwath.com.au His areas of expertise include superannuation, trusts, tax consolidation, capital gains tax (including rollovers), Audit | Tax | Advisory | Financial Advice capital management, tax effect accounting, and other taxes such as GST and FBT. He also has extensive experience dealing with the ATO, particularly in relation to reviews, audits, objections and private ruling requests.
At Davidsons we work with our clients to maintain a future focused outlook at all times. But in the lead up to 30 June we concentrate on making the most of our client’s year-end financial position. There are a myriad of tax saving strategies, the key is identifying those strategies that will have a positive impact to our client’s overall financial success because at Davidsons, it is about more than just tax. Early planning benefits all types of taxpayers, individuals and businesses alike. Strategies such as deferring income, prepayment of expenses, accessing a range of small business/ taxation concessions, future planning for expenditure such as assets and capital works as well as superannuation plans can be explored. A strength of Davidsons is that we have experts in taxation, superannuation and business advisory that work together in applying their specialist skills to find the best solution for our clients. To see how we can help you contact:
Taxation: Kylie McEwan kyliem@davidsons.com.au Ph: 52446835
Business Advisory: Ian Sweet ians@davidsons.com.au Ph: 52446802 Superannuation: Kylie McClure kmclure@davidsons.com.au Ph: 52446890
L1, 200 Malop St Geelong Tel: 5224 7700 geelong@crowehorwath.com.au www.crowehorwath.com.au
BUSINESS NEWS | 14
MONEY
CALLING IN DEBTS
T CARL JONES, DIRECTOR GREAT SOUTHERN CREDIT
he most common problem identified in reviewing a business’ accounts receivables processes is an over-reliance on written communications and very little or no telephone contact with their customers. The ability to control/ drive such a call can not only improve customer relations, but also crucially keeps your business and cash flow ticking over. Here are 10 tips on how to effectively communicate with customers by telephone when collecting overdue accounts.
1. Have a clear plan on what you want to achieve
– the primary objective is to obtain payment or a commitment to pay, and to collect information to enable you to make an informed decision.
2. Arm yourself with information - know who to
“whilst it can be difficult, avoid emotion, and maintain focus and control of your tone and language.”
speak to, the amount outstanding and when it was due. Be aware of their credit record with you and ensure that you have invoices/details of items sold/services provided available when calling. Be aware of any known or outstanding issues that your customer may have.
3. Identify who you are, where you are from, and
clearly establish the reason for your call and what you are seeking from them (e.g. payment).
4. Maintain control - whilst it can be difficult, avoid
emotion, and maintain focus and control of your tone and language. Avoid raising your voice and ignore irrelevant issues. Refer to the person you are speaking to by name, speak clearly and at an easy listening pace.
5. Ask ‘open-ended’ questions - questioning
should be aimed at obtaining information and reflect the reason for your call.
6. Be empathetic – acknowledge a customer’s circumstance, but remain focused on the original purpose of your call. Offer a win/win
BIZNEWSMAG.COM.AU | 15
solution for both parties. Buying into a person’s emotional state (sympathy) can unwittingly distract you from the purpose of your call.
7. Listen and take notes – avoid dominating a
conversation and talking over the top of your customer. Listening and taking notes will assist you to make clearer definitive decisions.
8. Quickly isolate disputes – acknowledge any
issues, and where necessary, request the customer to note the dispute in writing within a specified timeframe. Likewise, you should also commit to investigate and respond to their dispute within a realistic timeframe - do not over promise.
9. Confirm, confirm, confirm - end a call by
re-stating what the customer has committed to. Always establish clear timeframes. If they make no commitment, advise them of what further action you will take and when. Note the outcome of your discussion, and document any instalment payment arrangement in writing to your customer.
10. Handling verbal abuse – do not raise your
voice or ‘return fire’ so you maintain control of the discussion. Adopt a ‘3 strikes, you’re out’ policy: Strike 1 – calmly inform them that you seek to discuss the matter professionally, and then warn that further abuse may result in you terminating the call. Strike 2 – reiterate your warning and advise that any further abuse will result in the call being terminated. Strike 3 – terminate the call without speaking. It will amaze you how many will call back to apologise or pay.
COVER STORY
TALKING TAX REFORM WITH JOHN HEWSON “Let’s talk tax reform” … it’s not the sexiest opening line of a conversation, but it is a conversation we all have to have. What do we want the future of our taxation system and government spending to look like? What do we want our deficit level to be? Where do we want to focus government spending and how are we going to pay for it? There are some fairly obvious central tenets to a good tax system, things like fairness and the ability of people to pay; support for those most disadvantaged in the community and resilience across the tax and transfer system to allow for shifts in the global economy and national population change (tax being how governments brings in money and transfer being how and to where that money flows back to individuals and communities). Yet the Australian taxation system is riddled with systemic issues, from a shrinking revenue base to a fast-growing list of expenditures – we’re spending more than we have. The system is imbalanced, unfairly skewed towards the wealthy, and, most worryingly, the lack of a credible long-term reform agenda means that many of the inequities and inefficiencies in the system won’t be changing any time soon. When the Tax Act was first introduced it was a 24-page document. Today, the Act is a weighty 5500 or so pages, with layers of complexity weighing down our government’s key
revenue stream. The release of the Federal Government’s Tax White Paper on March 30 was aimed at generating debate about tax reform, and with Deloitte Access Economics figures predicting the nation’s deficit is set to blow out by $47 billion over the next four years, something has to change, and soon. The tax discussion paper looks at issues including reducing the company tax rate, broadening the GST and the impacts of profit shifting and OEDC (Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development) base erosion by large multinationals. The paper also sweeps aside important discussion points on the future of the tax and transfer system. Things like death tax and capital gains tax on the family home remain sacrosanct. And the really big question doesn’t even get a mention: is genuine reform of the tax and transfer system in Australia too important to be left to politicians? Dr John Hewson is the chair of the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute (TTPI) at Australian National University’s Crawford Institute of Public Policy. The TTPI was a key recommendation of the Henry Review into Australia’s future taxation system, established to do independent research into the tax and transfer system. But most would remember Dr Hewson as the former Liberal Leader of the Opposition in the late 1980s-early 1990s. Like so many past political leaders, Hewson retains that fierce
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COVER STORY passion and eloquent outrage that drives leaders to the top of the political pile, if only to be suppressed for their term at the top by the ever-collapsing canopy of the hot air balloon that is party politics. And, as a trained economist, John Hewson understands economics in a way few other politicians do. “There are two views on the tax system,” he said, as we launched into a discussion on tax reform a few weeks ago. “One is that across the board it’s not that bad, that we’ve done a little bit of this and a little bit of that and by adjusting it in an ad-hoc fashion are getting towards where it should be. The other side is that it’s an anachronistic system that’s completely imbalanced in many ways. “There are a number of pressure points in the system and [the federal government] can deal with them now or they can deal with them later, but they will have to deal with them. For example, bracket creep is going to push the medium income earner into the second top tax bracket in the next twelve months and that’s going to be a big political issue. You’ve got a corporate tax system with high corporate tax rates and where there is so much emphasis on the major players who are shifting profits and the whole industry around tax. “The third pressure point is the blatant inequities in the system, like superannuation, which is heavily skewed and has all those tax concessions. Those concessions cost nearly as much as the age pension in total and are rising faster in value than the age pension, and they are very heavily skewed in favour of the wealthy, so the inequity of that system is a real pressure point.
probably cost Hewson the 1993 election. The GST was eventually introduced by John Howard, but set at 10 per cent and riddled with exemptions it was a well-watered version of the sweeping reforms that characterised Hewson’s Fightback! “The GST is failing as a growth tax,” Dr Hewson said. “Everyone said it was wonderful because it was tied to expenditure and would grow with expenditure, but it’s on probably less than 50 per cent of expenditure and the bit it’s on is not growing anywhere near as fast as the bit it’s not on, so that’s a failing tax base. Then, of course, you’ve got the layers of disagreement about the distribution of the revenue from the GST. “I guess the final pressure point is this base erosion, profit shifting, with multinationals in this country not paying tax, shifting their marketing headquarters to Singapore or wherever expensive franchises go, basically so they can do billions of dollars of business and shift their profits offshore so that they pay very little tax in Australia. That’s unsustainable. “In that sense, you could say there’s a lot wrong with the tax system and it needs to be fixed.”
“When one side of politics puts up an idea, the other one immediately opposes it and it’s just ridiculous. You can’t have a sensible debate when they’re closing options as fast as the options are being raised.”
“There are other inequities in the system as well, like the application of capital gains tax or thin capitalisation rules.” A recent report from the Australia Institute generated headlines with its revealing analysis of some of our biggest tax breaks. The report featured modelling that showed that more than half of the $7.7 billion in tax concessions for negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount is going to the nation’s top 10 per cent of earners. Australia is one of only three OECD nations that provide this hefty leg up to the wealthy. A company is ‘thinly capitalised’ when its operations in this country are largely funded by debt as a means of avoiding Australian income tax, with companies claiming interest expenses and borrowing costs to reduce taxable income. Under Australian taxation regulations, there are prescribed limits of debt-to-equity ratios – debt limits, essentially, designed to limit the capacity of multinationals to avoid paying tax in Australia. It is these debtto-equity ratios that might be the Treasurer’s answer to the UK’s ‘Google Tax’ as part of movement across OECD countries to claim their fair share of tax from the corporate giants. Then there is the GST. John Hewson first raised the implementation of a goods and services tax in the late 80s, as a broad-based 15 per cent consumption tax, with exemptions for pensioners, people on disability support payments, veterans etc., designed to allow for income tax cuts. The suggestion was howled down by Paul Keating as ’15 per cent on everything’, and
Dr Hewson said there are also many issues plaguing the transfer system in Australia, particularly around marginal tax rates and phase-out rates, the targeting of pensions and the high potential for expenditure blow outs in the aged pension, as well as inadequacies in childcare funding.
“I’d hoped that when [the Abbott] government came in that we’d have a broad-based review of the tax and transfer system with a view to putting together an overall significant package that they could take to the next election. It’s looking like we’ll get another round of ad-hockery; a couple of little changes here or there. They’ll probably commit to pay back bracket creep, they’ll probably give some sorts of tax concessions to small business and they’ve announced that they’re not going to lower the corporate tax rate, but I think they’ll find that they have to do that in the medium term. And they’ll do bits of the GST, they’ll pick up these overseas purchases under $1000 that are exempt and will charge GST on them and they’ll probably do something with super,” he said, adding that the Government would be likely to get bi-partisan support for changes to superannuation concessions. “There are a lot of other issues in the system too, like the indexation that was removed on the petrol excise. That was a very expensive thing to have done. We’ve got the inadequacy of the taxing of alcohol, with differential alcohol tax. You go through the system and pick up each revenue item and you find a lot of problems, the question is whether [the government] want to do something about it.” The Abbott Government has committed to giving a tax concession to small business, which is likely to come in the form of accelerated depreciation and cash write-offs. “You’d like to think that they’d put the GST on everything and put it up to 15 per cent – it’s still less than the global average – and use that additional income to really reform personal and corporate tax and the transfer system at the same time, putting in
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COVER STORY exemptions for the most disadvantaged, because you would have the capacity to do that. At the same time you’d get rid of some of the really poor taxes like stamp duties and financial institution duties and those sorts of bits and pieces that are still around the system. That’s the big package,” Dr Hewson said. Adding unnecessary and befuddling complexity to the Australian tax system is the sheer bulk of tax legislation. “It’s absolutely ridiculous. What’s happened is that they haven’t been able to do the big tax reform package dating back to Asprey in 1975, Hawke/Keating in the middle 80s and Howard made a mess of the GST. They haven’t done the big package and what they have done is to try to close loopholes and patch the system up. It’s all ad-hoc with pieces of legislation here and there and what you end up with is an extremely complicated system. The Asprey Review, delivered by Justice Ken Asprey in 1975, was commissioned on the back of the damage the very high marginal tax rates, originally put in place to pay for the post-war welfare bill, were doing to the wider economy. The review document set out recommendations for a more balanced tax system, broadening the income tax base, introducing capital gains tax, fringe benefits tax and taxing income from foreign investments. The Henry Review was a similarly broad-based blueprint document (although notably did not include the GST) that looked at challenges in the tax and transfer system and set out a long-term set of recommendations to reform the system for the next forty years. Unlike Ken Asprey’s report, Ken Henry’s recommendations are yet to be substantially implemented, largely for reasons of short-term political expediency.
“These are some of the bigger questions that I would have hoped would be dealt with and debated in this [discussion paper] process. Unfortunately, we’re not seeing any of that and it’s very frustrating to see. When one side of politics puts up an idea, the other one immediately opposes it and it’s just ridiculous. You can’t have a sensible debate when they’re closing options as fast as the options are being raised.” Is it time to take tax reform out of the hands of politicians? I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking it is long past time. Dr Hewson has made the case for an independent tax commission in the past, and given the poor state of federal politics, it is an idea that is gaining in attraction. “Independence is something that we have done [in Australian government]. I know there’s been criticism of the Commonwealth Grants Commission, for example, and the allocation of GST revenue, but it is an independent body. It is not a political process; it’s not horse-trading; it’s done independently. Okay, you may be able to improve it, sure, and it may be subject to some further thought, but it is an independent process. It’s like the Reserve Bank. In the old days, the Prime Minister as part of his cabinet used to set interest rates and exchange rates. How nonsensical was that? These issues are really big issues and perhaps they’re too important to be left to a political process run by a bunch of politicians who have no particular skills set or experience, in a process that is overtly shortterm and opportunistic, negative and not really about long-term structural reform.
“Superannuation concessions cost nearly as much as the age pension in total and are rising faster in value than the age pension, and they are very heavily skewed in favour of the wealthy.”
“If you look at some of the most efficient taxes, like land tax and payroll tax, you can ask a reasonable question in why aren’t these national taxes? Why don’t we have a national land tax, a national payroll tax, and a national mining tax? There are a lot of changes you could make to put a lot more efficiency into the system and cut the cost base around the tax and transfer system,” Dr Hewson said. “There’s a global push to lower corporate tax rates. You can ask the conceptual question: if lower corporate tax rates are better than higher corporate tax rates, why do you have a corporate tax rate at all?” Australia’s corporate tax rates are sitting at 30 per cent, the U.S. is at 35 per cent, Britain is 20 per cent, and Hong Kong and Singapore are lower still at around 15 per cent. And we can add Ireland to that list, with the Emerald Isle’s 12.5 per cent corporate tax rate making it a home away from home for some of the world’s biggest corporations. British territories like Jersey, Guernsey and Bermuda are also amongst the most favoured havens for the mega-rich looking to take their accounting to creative new heights and taxation lows. “You could get rid of corporate tax and expand the GST or some other tax,” Dr Hewson suggested. “In the end, it all gets passed on through prices with consumers paying for it anyway, so why not have a consumption tax that collects it directly and more effectively?
“When I proposed the RBA back in 1980 everyone thought I was insane, but it was the only way in the end that the financial system could be managed. As a politician, I used to sit in the Monetary Policy Committee of Cabinet every day. There were seven members of that committee, including the Finance Minister and the Treasurer, but their votes didn’t count because there were four farmers who always voted together in a block and they were setting interest rates. They never thought it was a good idea to put them up. They were also setting the exchange rate and they never thought it was a good idea to put that up either!” he laughed. “We were never going to get a sensible system of monetary policy – you know, they’d announce an interest rate on a bond issue, sometimes they’d sell and sometimes they wouldn’t; it had nothing to do with the market context. While the Reserve Bank has had some faults in the way it’s gone about it - keeping an absolutely fixed inflation target and not adjusting it; not having an allowance for asset price inflation and so on, and they’ve missed a lot of opportunities - but having said that, they’re still a lot better than having a cabinet make these decisions. While that was bad in the 1970s and early 80s, it would be pathetic today with the negative and short-term political system.” Dr Hewson said the biggest concern in our current political system is that problems are left to drift until they become so large that something has to be done about them, which leads to policy on the run.
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COVER STORY “It’s like housing suddenly becoming a big issue because it’s no longer easy for a younger-to-middle aged Australian to buy a house. Housing affordability is going to be a very, very big issue mostly because [successive governments] just let it drift for the last ten years. The same thing is going to happen with tax and bracket creep. If you don’t hand back bracket creep, at some point people are going to say, ‘You’re just ripping us off’.
cost around $25 to $30 billion a year and that’s the bulk of the deficit. That’s the thing, [the Howard government] had so much revenue that they didn’t expect to get and for short-term political purposes they just spent it, either by way of tax cuts or baby bonuses or family tax benefits or whatever. That’s not sustainable. But when they get them people will inevitably come to expect that they will be sustained.
“We have got quite high marginal rates of personal income tax at quite low levels. There were some really significant structural issues in the personal tax sector, for example, where it was thought that just having a big tax-free zone would drop a whole lot of people out of the tax system and save a whole lot of paperwork; but to do that you have to have a pretty high marginal rate on your first bracket, and a higher one on your second bracket. All of the economic benefits of tax rates come from broad-based lower rates. If you push people out of the tax system, is it more complicated to go to Centrelink to get a benefit than it is to fill in a tax return? I suspect it is,” he said.
“You need some way of taking the longer-term view and maybe a tax commission can do that – it could set out the nature of the problem quite objectively. Not like the Intergenerational Report, which is a political document – it didn’t give you a substantive sense of what’s possible and what would happen under different assumptions. It was another wasted opportunity, obviously.”
“One of the tax principles is the lower the rate the better, the broader the base the better. You cut out a lot of complexity by doing that, as well as keeping all the incentive effects, the worker participation effects and all the savings effects. We’ve sort of worked against this for short-term political reasons.” But could an independent body that sets tax policy really drive reform in our tax system or would it be just another toothless tiger? “What you would have to do first is to develop that community acceptance of there being a problem. Secondly, you have to do the proper evidence-based, objective research and analysis. And thirdly, you would have to lay out the options to fix the problems. That would probably force the political parties and the political system to pick up some of these options. Or another way of going about it would be that at each election you could have a couple of referendum questions around income tax levels, broadening of the GST etc. and then you would run it as an election campaign that would return a mandate to whoever wins. “California did some of that, I remember, with a series of propositions. You’ve got to have a way of moving these things forward. But what we probably don’t have at the moment is the informed discussion and debate, because people don’t know what the options are and they don’t know what the cost of some of those options are. When you look across the broader community, there are a whole host of vested interests that want deductions or that want funding. Everyone wants to spend more money one way or another – either by directly spending it or by tax concessions – and there’s never going to be a very informed debate when you’ve got a budget problem and you’ve got a number of really significant restraints that ultimately will come home to roost. “I noticed that Costello was very sensitive about the suggestion that he shouldn’t have brought in the tax cuts during the boom because then we wouldn’t have a deficit today. Those tax cuts
If we can take the politicking out of the conversation, we could start to have a genuine and informed debate around negative gearing, around stamp duties, the rate and breadth of the GST, and around the other options within the tax and transfer system, like setting limits on negative gearing, having means testing linked to net wealth, and what about death taxes, or means testing aggregate household assets to reduce the recent phenomenon of the millionaire aged pensioners? We could take a serious look things like bulk billing in Medicare and all of the other things that should form part of a broad-based review of taxation but are instead put aside, sacrificed and sanctified as our honourable bums on seats focus more keeping their jobs and on their party holding power, than on the future economic strength of the nation. We need to be looking over a forty year period and we need to be looking at demographic shifts, population projections, the long-term impacts of climate change and these are issues that cannot be viewed with any sense when the field of focus is set at a mere four years. “The mining tax was just neutered by politics. There was widespread support for a mining tax at the beginning, and indeed many in the mining community said that they understood that they should pay more tax, but that got squandered by short-term political processes. The carbon price is another example of that, but it’s also true of negative gearing,” Dr Hewson said. “We need to outline the problem with negative gearing. Who are the winners and who are the losers, what can we do about it, these are the options and here’s the evidence around those options, and we recommend you do A, B and C. That would be a very different world to one where both sides say ‘Oh, we can’t touch that.’” Just imagine a system that incentivises the investment of superannuation in Australian infrastructure projects, for example, or that uses the tax system to support investment in renewable energy technology? “If you broaden the agenda to consider some of those bigger economic and social challenges and ask the question of the role of the tax system in that context, you would get a very different answer to anything you’ve ever seen discussed in this country.”
DAVINA MONTGOMERY BIZNEWSMAG.COM.AU | 19
REWARDS YOU
BUSINESS NEWS | 20
AUSTRALIAN PUBLIC SERVICE BENEVOLENT SOCIETY LTD
APS Tax & Accounting
Richard Ferraro at APS Tax, Accounting and Business Services is an experienced CPA taxation accountant. Whether it is setting up a business, managing your superannuation fund or just obtaining quality service, Richard can help you.
APS Financial Planning
Timothy Foster provides access to advice and information on the important financial decisions we all face, whether it be superannuation, investments, pre and post retirement planning, life insurance, gearing, disability and trauma insurance, managed funds or savings plans.
APS Mortgage Broking
Sam Athans treats every mortgage as if it were his own. He has access to 20 mortgage lenders and has over 40 years experience in banking. Let us do the leg work for you.
APS Insurance (General Insurance Broking)
APS Benevolent Foundation donations $467,652
Danielle Rowe heads up our insurance broking team and is a salaried employee of APS Benefits. With over 15 years experience in the industry, Danielle has access to products that include home and contents, motor vehicle, boat/caravan, landlord, public liability, income protection, life, disability & trauma insurance. The next time you receive your insurance renewal notice or want insurance for the first time, call Danielle on 1300 131 809.
APS Personal Loans
The APS Benefits personal loans team can assist members to obtain an unsecured loan, or they can apply online at www.apsbs.com.au. Either way, loans can be approved within 24 hours.
APS Funeral Cover. Adult & Child Cover Available.
APS Benefits Membership Coordinator Jesse Clarke can assist members to gain immediate funeral cover up to $20,000 for adults and $7,000 for dependent children (aged 2 to 15 next birthday). Do you have cover in the greatest time of need? Call us on 1300 131 809.
APS Savings
Target $500,000 WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT! For more information call 1300 131 809 or visit www.apsbs.com.au
APS Savings Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of APS Benefits and offers a Fixed Term Investment product. Ask Sam Athans about the interest rate on offer and you will be pleasantly suprised. The term can be 30 days, 6 months, 12 months or 24 months. Call us on 1300 131 809.
APS Wills & Estates
Phil Lambourne from APS Wills & Estates has over 25 years experience as a lawyer. Phil can help you with wills, powers of attorney, probate and estate administration. Is your will up-to-date? Have you reviewed your will recently? It affects more than just you!
APS Benevolent Foundation
Recently launched, the Foundation is a registered charity and a deductible gift recipient. Donations above $2 are tax deductible. The Foundation will enable the Society to expand our level of benevolence. Need to know more? Call us on 1300 131 809. Further to this, APS is owned by its members, so any profits are channelled back to members. Help spread the word by introducing new members and APS will send you, your nominated charity or your staff social club $50 for each new member you nominate. Membership of APS Benefits automatically entitles you to a funeral benefit issued by APS Benefits. You should consider the Combined Product Disclosure Statement & Financial Services Guide (available from APS Benefits or our website on www.apsbs.com.au) before making a decision to become a member of APS Benefits or buy any products offered by APS Benefits. Financial services provided by Australian Public Service Benevolent Society Ltd are provided under its AFSL No. 244115. APS Financial Planning Pty Ltd is a Corporate Authorised Representative (No. 305923) of Patron Financial Advice (“Patron”). Financial services provided by APS Financial Planning Pty Ltd are provided under Patron’s AFSL No. 307379. APS Savings Disclaimer: This is not a bank product, it is an unlisted APS Note. No independent assessment has been made about the risk to investors losing any of their principal investment. Applications for APS Notes can only be made on the Investment Application Form which accompanies the prospectus issued by APS Savings Ltd. Please read the prospectus carefully before deciding whether to make an investment. APS Wills & Estates: Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation.
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A FIRM FOCUS ON THE FUTURE
W
hile Coulter Roache Lawyers are this year celebrating 80 years since company founder, Frank Gargan, first opened the doors, the focus of this business remains firmly on the future. With six offices across the region, and over 65 employees, including 25 lawyers, Coulter Roache is entering a strong growth phase, marked by the appointment of four new Senior Lawyers as a direct reflection of continuing growth throughout the Geelong region. It was in 1935 that Frank Gargan began operating as a solicitor out of three rooms in the National Bank Building on the corner of Moorabool and Malop Streets, running the business as a sole practitioner until he took on a young Articled Clerk, Kevin Roache, in 1969. The strength and growth of the firm across the decades has reflected the development of the city and the surrounding region and business growth within the local economy. From those first few rooms, the Geelong Head Office now takes up
the entire first floor of 235 Ryrie Street, and the firm has branch offices in Bannockburn, Torquay, Anglesea, Barwon Heads and Portarlington. While it has become something of a tradition of wellperforming service firms to push into the metropolitan market, Coulter Roache has taken a different approach, spreading their network of offices throughout the region to provide a service that reflects the widespread growth of businesses across Greater Geelong and the Surf Coast. As a broad based firm, having local offices ensures the entrenched values of personalised service from local professionals. As the needs of business and clients become more complex, so has the firm’s service offering, with clients including the TAC, Geelong Football Club, Bendigo Bank, the Surf Coast Shire, Bisinella, The Gordon, Timbertruss, Quiksilver and Boundary Bend Olives/Cobram Estate.
BUSINESS NEWS | 22
LEGAL “Coulter Roache has always very much been part of the Geelong community and we are continuing to strengthen our presence in Geelong and the greater region,” says Managing Principal, Tom White. “We are also constantly developing our service offering to our clients. Often their requirements can be highly complex and in order to deliver the highest level of certainty and security, as well as legislative and regulatory compliance, we must continue to expand. This includes our expansion into tax advice.” The firm has a long and proud history of quality, one that was first built by company founder Frank Gargan. “He had tremendous integrity and a great reputation,” Kevin recalls. “He also set the pattern this company has continued of community involvement, being vice president and president of Geelong Hospital, as it was then, for about 30 years and chairman of both the Geelong Racing Club and the Geelong Eastern Cemeteries Trust.” Those values of community involvement that Frank instituted within his business continued on through Kevin, the current Chairman and Head of the Wills & Estate Planning department. A one-time president of Barwon Health & director of the Bendigo Bank for 17 years, Kevin holds a range of board positions in community organisations across the region, including the Committee for Geelong. And the Articled Clerk that he took on, Tom White, is now the Managing Principal of the company and Head of the Corporate and Commercial division. Like Frank and Kevin, Tom and the Principals of the firm are determined to ensure Coulter Roache Lawyers remains an active participant in the growth and development of community life in Geelong.
Coulter Roache Lawyers is a founding sponsor of Cotton On Foundation’s Run Geelong, and continues to support not-for-profit community events and organisations such as BacLinks, Give Where You Live, Samaritan House, Anam Cara and Bethany. The firm’s lawyers are encouraged to take up roles on the boards of community organisations in areas that particularly interest them or have a personal resonance. The firm have been lawyers for the Geelong Football Club for more than 50 years and has a long and close association with the Bendigo Bank. Although proud of its history, it is to the future that all eyes at Coulter Roache Lawyers are directed. “Our vision is to be the legal firm of choice based on our values of integrity, commitment and communication both at work and in our wider community,” Tom says. “We’re focused on developing partnerships with our clients – understanding their circumstances and objectives to deliver practical, cost effective solutions. We also spend considerable time developing our younger lawyers through in-house training and mentoring to ensure they continue to provide the same high quality service and advice to our clients.” In the first few months of 2015, the firm has expanded its team, welcoming four new Senior Lawyers across the Property & Development and Corporate & Commercial departments. The continued growth of the firm reflects the strong relationship between Coulter Roache Lawyers and the growing Geelong business community – as they continue to expand and continue to strive for excellence, so do Coulter Roache. This is one company with a firm focus on the future.
BIZNEWSMAG.COM.AU | 23
VECCI
SKILLS, INNOVATION AND EXPORTS KEY TO SMALL BUSINESS COMPETITIVENESS
Improving small business skills, strengthening innovation and leveraging new export opportunities must be the priority of governments to keep small business competitive and create jobs in Geelong and across Victoria.
In light of the exciting growth opportunities presented by the Asian Century and recently signed Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), it is more important than ever that we get more small businesses into exporting.
These are the key findings of the recently released VECCI Small Business Taskforce report, “Small business. Big opportunities”.
The report’s priority areas include:
Small business is important business for Geelong. Ninety eight per cent of Victoria’s businesses are small. Though small in size, they are big on innovation; they are major employers and key drivers of economic activity, investment and trade.
Skills: Support the skills growth of small business workforces and management. Costs: Lower small business direct and indirect costs. Exports: Get more small businesses into overseas markets.
In recognition of this vital contribution, VECCI’s Small Business Taskforce has developed a series of policy recommendations to drive further small business growth and success through 2015 and beyond.
Innovation: Encourage more small business innovation and entrepreneurship.
The report outlines priority areas for policy makers including reduced red tape and cuts to direct business costs, improved small business access to competitively priced finance and new initiatives to raise the skills of small business operators and their workforces.
Procurement: Provide small business with greater opportunity to sell goods and services to government.
Governments must also work harder to improve small business access to government purchasing and more effectively leverage public and private sector partnerships to strengthen small business innovation.
Finance: Improve small business access to competitively priced finance.
We seek a commitment from both state and federal government to make small business a priority by taking up the recommendations contained in our agenda.
JAMES GULLI VECCI Regional Manager Geelong and South West Victoria
JAMES GULLI, VECCI REGIONAL MANAGER GEELONG & SOUTH WEST VICTORIA BUSINESS NEWS | 24
FINANCE
THAT NEVER ENDING “C WORD”
I
’m sure we all agree that the there’s nothing as constant as change in this world and the recent (and umpteenth) request of my 24 year-old daughter to “keep up with the times, Dad” prompted me to put pen to paper this month pontificating on change over the past 25 years and some helpful hints on how to deal with change.
MARTIN CARTER, BUSINESS MANAGER, MORRIS FINANCE
“change is the law of life” - those who look only towards the past or the present are certain to miss the future.
Since 1990 there has been huge social and technological shifts in modern society and the truth of the matter is that “change is the law of life” - those who look only towards the past or the present are certain to miss the future. The changes that have taken place in the past 25 years have been remarkable, consider: Australia’s population went from 17 million to circa 24 million, the Reserve Bank cash rate dropped from 17.25% to 2.25%, McDonalds Restaurants went from fast food burger restaurants to pseudo healthy cafés, a new viewing revelation called reality TV occurred and is here to stay, Australia has had 6 prime ministers, one of which was female, the Kodak camera has been replaced by iPhones, the dawn of the Internet and social media giants Facebook, Twitter and Instagram has arrived in force and the most commonly used word has six letters with three vowels within, so “Google” it. When considering change in a business sense there are six critical “C” words that will ensure success; namely, contemplation as to why, what, where, when and how the change that will ensue is necessary, communication and sharing of ideas and engagement, continuous bite-sized changes bringing overall significant improvement, consistent processes done in the
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same way over time, checking progress at regular intervals and celebrating when milestones are reached. When engaging employees in the process of the change It is most assuredly true that faced with change some will cascade through the four stages of change, initially denying their need to change, resisting change by stating it will never work and voicing their want to go back to the old way, to exploration and a consideration that maybe it will work in the long run, to a final stage of commitment and acceptance that this is how it will work and it is a better way. There are also several integral facts that warrant consideration for successful change to become DNA within a business: change is never easy; people will not necessarily do what they are told; a plan by itself is never enough; leadership needs to be involved in the whole process; resistance can derail things if left alone; you cannot fight resistance through minimising or deflecting people’s roles; change will not become immediate; technology will not fix the problem, it will support the people who can fix the problem; we must always consult with our clients or customers; and lastly, one size does not fit all, be flexible in the change models that you use. So, now that we have briefly explored change and provided some helpful tips it’s time for us to consider what the future may look like, viewed with passion and appreciation as to what got us where we are now and why we will need to change to get us to where we want to be. Until next month, onwards and upwards and remember that when you are through changing you are through!
TECHNOLOGY
A TECH-DRIVEN FUTURE FOR NEEDS-BASED SERVICES
W
hen we start to think about some of the intrinsic ways that developments in technology are shaping our future, education, health and community services invariably become part of that conversation. We think about doctors and surgeons walking around with patient records on networked tablets; we think about classes delivered online; we think about services linked over connected networks in ways that create real solutions for some of societies most complex, most challenging issues.
those in the entertainment services organisations when it came to feeling the greatest demand for contact via social media, but didn’t expect that demand to grow. And about two-fifths of education, health and community services organisations believed the NBN would provide greater coverage within their current markets.
Would it surprise you to hear that the education, health and community sector ranked only fifth out of seven industries on the Industry Preparedness Index developed by Deloitte Access Economics?
Across the sector, organisations are developing new business models to meet customer expectations across the next three to five years. How we interact with these organisations, and how they conduct their business or services with us, will all lean heavily on new technology models. For example, interaction with customers via social media accounted for around 39 per cent of customer interaction in 2012, but was predicted to rise to 60 per cent over the three to five years up to 2017.
Deloitte used the research findings of the Optus Future of Business Report 2012 to devise an overall benchmark of how Australian industries compare, based on their rates of digital adoption and relative preparedness for the future – whether or not they had an NBN strategy, were measuring the direct benefits of their online and mobile services, using mobile or online payment methods, and whether they had an external social media strategy, conduct online sales or had a mobile website. The industries covered in the report were: entertainment services; retail trade; finance and property; transport, storage and wholesale trade; education, health and community; mining and construction; and manufacturing.
Across the health, education and community services sector, a clear picture emerged of a rapid shift towards technology services and systems. Online purchasing and ordering was predicted to increase from 21 per cent in 2012 to 44 per cent by 2015-2017, and similarly, online self-service applications are predicted to increase across the sector from 39 per cent in 2012 to 59 per cent by 2017. Other areas of big technological shift expected across the sector include online service delivery (31 per cent in 2012 to 56 per cent by 2017), online billing/invoicing (28 per cent in 2012 to 56 per cent by 2017), mobile website capabilities (23 per cent in 2012 to 44 per cent within three to five years), and mobile applications (18 per cent in 2012 set to rise to 52 per cent by 2017).
What they found was that education, health and community services was the industry sector expecting the greatest growth in electronic direct mail as a revenue channel, but that almost a third of organisations within the sector were currently not measuring the benefit of existing digital applications. Interestingly, amongst the industry organisations surveyed, they were equaled only by
It’s safe to say that we can expect some very big changes in how we learn, how healthcare is delivered and how we interact with community services in the very near future.
MICHELLE SYNOT, OPTUS BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS GEELONG
BUNDLE YOUR SERVICES WITH OPTUS YOUR ANDSERVICES SAVE WITH BUNDLE We understand how important cash flow is to your business. So when you sign up for multiple OPTUS AND SAVE products with Optus, like our office broadband, phone lines and value-packed mobile plans, we could We understand how important cash flow is to your business. So when you sign up for multiple help to reduce your costs. products with Optus, like our office broadband, phone lines and value-packed mobile plans, we could help to reduce your costs.
Want to improve your bottom line? Chat to the team at Want toto improve your<Northern bottom line? Chat Michelle and the Want improve your bottom line? Chat toSynot the team atteam at Optus Business Centre Optus Business Centre Rivers> onto<BCP number>.
Geelong on (03) 5215 5300 or www.optus.com.au/business/business-centre/inbiz-geelong Optus Business Centre <Northern Rivers> on <BCP number>.
BUSINESS NEWS | 26
BUSINESS ADVICE
NAVIGATING THE COMPLEXITIES OF FAMILY BUSINESSES AVOIDING CONFLICT Set the scene from the start. That means preparing a business plan or charter that will govern the business. Ensure every family member is engaged in the process and agrees with the strategies. Define roles, working with individuals’ strengths. Importantly, make them accountable for their input into the business - they will feel they are valued and are contributing not just to their success but also to the success of the business. Reward people as individuals, based on performance, not just because they may be a preferred family member. Don’t employ family members than can’t contribute – they could do more damage than good. Keep talking! Hold regular meetings to discuss progress, outcomes and issues. Ensure family feuds are kept out of the business and don’t take sides, otherwise you’ll find yourself caught up in the conflict. When these situations spill over into a business you need to act as an effective manager and tackle the problems head-on. But take time out too for some social activity away from the office. Family relationships are important.
HELEN BUTTERISS PRINCIPAL, BUSINESS ADVISORY - CROWE HORWATH
A
family business is different from other businesses because the personal needs of the family interact with and influence the business. This sometimes leads to conflict and can hinder the potential of the business. As experienced Business Advisors to family businesses, we recommend that you: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
Set clear goals and objectives Identify how the family fits into the business Develop a family business plan Learn how to manage conflict Manage business transition smoothly Protect and manage your estate Have a clear succession planning in place Understand the family business worth Prepare for the unexpected
There are often difficult conversations and issues to address in family businesses – for instance, not all family members have the right skill set for the job and you may need to consider recruiting senior talent. So, assessing and recognising skills and finding appropriate roles is important to the success of the business and avoiding conflict.
PLANNING AND SETTING GOALS 1. Set clear goals and objectives – this helps any business to head in the right and one direction. Goals help you prepare for what your future will look like. Set SMART goals – specific, measureable, achievable, relevant and time based. 2. D evelop a family business plan – consider ownership, governance, decision-making, conflict management, family involvement (including the next generation), management succession, other matters and acceptance and amendment of the constitution.
PROTECTING AND MANAGING YOUR ESTATE
HOW THE FAMILY FITS INTO THE BUSINESS
To ensure beneficiaries are well cared for, and to provide peace of mind for yourself, speak to your Advisor to make an estate plan:
A useful way of identifying how each person fits into the business is to divide roles into 3 key areas:
• Taking into account all of your assets and liabilities, as well as your wishes;
•F amily member
• Making recommendations for managing and structuring your estate and ensuring there are sufficient funds to cover your debts and provide for your family’s future needs; and
•F amily business owner •F amily business team-member (manager, employee etc.) By identifying each person’s roles this will clearly define their level of ownership, entitlements and active input into the business, if any. You may also find that there is overlap. Characteristics of a health family business
• Understanding how current legislation will affect the treatment of your estate. \We have produced an eBook on Family Businesses to assist family businesses to achieve their business and lifestyle aspirations. Please call Crowe Horwath on 5224 7700 to obtain a copy.
There are 3 key areas that you should assess, including: 1. The family functions well 2. The business is well managed 3. Business and family interactions are open and effective If all these issues are considered and aligned then your family business, for the most part, should be happy and healthy.
This information is provided under Crowe Horwath Financial Advice Pty Ltd AFSL 238244 and does not in any way constitute advice as each individual investors situation is different. Advice should be tailored and sought from professionally qualified, experienced financial experts before any action is taken.
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COMPETITION
For your chance to win one of 5 double passes to the show head to biznewsmag facebook page or email your name and details to abbey@adcellgroup.com.au with the subject line “Anything Goes” BUSINESS NEWS | 28
COMPETITION
biznewsmag It’s heels up and hijinks on the S.S. American as the Broadway classic “Anything Goes” returns to Melbourne. Opera Australia Artistic Director, Lyndon Terracini AM, and leading Australian theatre producer, John Frost AM, have brought this new production of Cole Porter’s smash-hit musical comedy to Australia in 2015. Leading the all-star cast is Caroline O’Connor (Chicago) as evangelist turned nightclub singer Reno Sweeney. Playing Lord Evelyn Oakleigh, the wealthy English fiancé of Hope, will be audience favourite Todd McKenney (The Boy From Oz). “Anything Goes is a shining example of classic musical theatre, complete with amazing tap numbers, hilarious jokes, unlikely happy endings and of course, wonderful songs,” said John Frost and Lyndon Terracini. “After the overwhelming success of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific and The King and I, a revival of Anything Goes featuring the dazzling music of Cole Porter seemed the obvious choice.” Since its Broadway premiere, it has become one of the best-loved and most revived musicals of all time. This dazzling musical celebration, described by Ben Brantley of The New York Times as “a deluxe candy box of Cole Porter’s best songs,” features a hilarious tale of topsy-turvy relationships, mistaken identities and foiled plots, peppered with some of musical theatre’s most memorable standards including You’re The Top, De-Lovely, I Get A Kick Out Of You and of course the title song, Anything Goes.
Season Details: Princess Theatre, Melbourne Season: from 27 May 2015 Performance Times: Wed–Sat 7.30pm, Matinees Tues & Wed 1pm, Sat 2pm & Sun 3pm Bookings: Ticketmaster.com.au or phone 1300 111 011 Groups of 12 or more call 1300 889 278
For more information visit the website, www.anythinggoesmusical.com.au BIZNEWSMAG.COM.AU | 29
the
ELEVATOR
Steamatic Geelong has been owned and operated by the same two families, the Taylor’s & Vivian’s for 21years. Our business has grown from a traditional carpet cleaning business, with just two working partners, to a company that now offers a wide range of services, both domestic and commercial. Steamatic Geelong has 12 full-time staff and 8 casuals that are all trained in the many various services we offer. Steamatic saw the need for a local company to offer a more dedicated, specialised commercial cleaning service, rather than the traditional janitorial cleaning that is sometimes offered. Steamatic Geelong covers all of Geelong and surrounding areas, and also own and operate the Warrnambool Franchise, which means we cover all of Geelong and the Western District. Steamatic Geelong prides ourselves on our commitment to customer service, which has always been a high priority for us. Our office has a dedicated team of professionals ready to answer the hard questions in relation to any specialised commercial cleaning solutions you may need. Some of our commercial services include:
The ELEVATOR allows businesses the opportunity to give their ‘Elevator Pitch’ to the rest of the regional business community free of charge.
FOR DETAILS SEE WWW.BIZNEWSMAG.COM.AU
If you are looking for a local company to offer you a solution to your commercial cleaning needs, large or small, please contact us today.
DreamWall Printing is a local family business that transforms blank walls into works of art using world-leading wall printing technology. Digital images can now be printed DIRECTLY onto your walls - creating brand new ways to decorate walls. DreamWall Printing has already helped clients with: - Corporate prints including logos, entrance foyers and boardroom prints, - Decoration of children’s rooms...your children cannot rip these prints off the wall, - Residential Prints, - Glass prints, - Prints that can be mounted outdoors, and - Interactive whiteboards, creating an engaging learning tool. If you would like something customised we can also help. Our graphic designer will work with you to create a truly personalised design. DreamWall Printing is also partnering with a selection of the best local image producers to provide them a new creative outlet and enable them to offer their images to customers in new styles and larger sizes. We would love to meet with you to discuss how DreamWall Printing can help transform your blank walls into works of art that everyone will admire and desire. Contact Natalie at DreamWall Printing today for a free, no obligation consultation to learn more about how DreamWall Printing can help you.
PD Plus: Professional Development Plus Pty Ltd is a small Geelong-based online business providing high quality professional learning opportunities for teachers across Australia. Focusing this year on Victoria, South Australia and Queensland, one-day seminars are presented by experienced and dynamic practitioners in the areas of Languages (Other Than English), Learning Styles, Literacy, Numeracy, Student Relationship Management, and Student and Staff Wellbeing. Our business motto is “inform, inspire and engage”; the seminars aim to inform teachers about best practice in teaching and learning, inspire them to improve their professional practice and, thereby, engage their students in effective learning. Our seminars bring together teachers from government, independent and catholic primary and secondary schools who not only learn from the seminar presenter but also from each other. Booking a place in our seminars is made online in a straightforward, easy and quick process designed for busy professionals. For ease of access (with particular reference to public transport availability), our seminars are conducted in inner capital city locations at venues that provide comfortable high quality learning environments and exceptional catering. PD Plus is prepared to present seminars in Geelong or anywhere in Australia where there is a demonstrated need sufficient to generate viable attendances. Representatives from interested schools or clusters of schools are invited to contact PD Plus with requests and proposals. “You get an A PLUS professional learning experience with PD PLUS”
Ph: (03) 5241 6333. 129 Marshalltown Road, Grovedale www.steamaticgeelong.com.au
0491 108 128 info@dreamwall.com.au
m: 0431 166 552 e: info@pdplus.com.au w: www.pdplus.com.au
Commercial Kitchen Flue & Canopy Cleaning HVAC/Air Duct Cleaning Dry Ice Blasting High Window Cleaning
Document Drying Hard Surface Cleaning Builders Cleans Pre-Production Factory Cleaning
www.dreamwall.com.au
BUSINESS NEWS | 30
THE ELEVATOR
DANCENFORCE School of Dance is certainly not your average dance school! Offering everything from casual classes for fun and fitness, through to specialised technique classes that prepare students for exams or competitions. And that’s just the beginning. Centred on the values of equality and opportunity, the dedicated teachers at DANCENFORCE not only value the diversity of today’s society but furthermore understand the multiplicity of the dance industry. Recognising the generic one size fits all approach simply no longer meets the needs of today’s dancers, DANCENFORCE design dance tuition based on individual goals and aspirations, offering a plethora of choice and opportunity to ensure every student has the option to achieve what they want out of their dancing. DANCENFORCE strive to exceed the expectations people have about regular dance classes, consistently going above and beyond customary standards to create opportunities that, in the past, have been either unheard of or limited to the elite. This innovative approach is not only raising the bar of what is expected from traditional dance schools but furthermore paves the way for new and exciting opportunities within the dance community. DANCENFORCE – Achieve what others only dream of!
Phone: 0478 522 031 info@dancenforce.com
Are you after a professional creative photographer? You’ve worked hard in your business and now you want to showcase your company’s skills with eye catching images but are hesitant who you can trust with the job? So many photographers out there but who is genuine in their skills to compliment yours? With experience and knowledge in photography, an eye for creative images and a courteous manner, I can help you ignite your audience and potential customers through vibrant images! Who am I? I’m Greg, the sole proprietor of Caprice Photography, a business I have built up over time, driven by my love of photography and my desire to deliver high quality, creative images for the domestic and business community. I enjoy the social interaction I have with clients and their staff creating a professional lasting link between us. I specialise in the following: Promotional events Corporate events Private functions Charity events Product advertising Business and industry photography Professional portraits for portfolios/ media requirements Freelance photography and writing Viral video slideshows for social media advertising Professional printing services Let me showcase your work through professional photography by calling me now for a friendly chat. I look forward to hearing from you!
0428 399 488 www.capricephotography.com.au Blog:http://caprice-photography.com/
Geelong’s locally owned & operated independent online pet supply store, for all your pet’s needs delivered to your door. Launched in 2013 by a passionate husband & wife team, Geelong Pets Direct is dedicated to providing Geelong & surrounds with high quality pet products, low prices, and good old fashioned customer service. Why battle the crowds at the pet shop on the weekend, or rush after work to find it closed? Order your pet’s food & accessories from the comfort of your own home. Dog, cat, bird, fish, guinea pig & rabbit food, & accessories at low prices! To make it even better delivery is FREE if you’re within the driver delivery area! See website for full list. If you’re outside the delivery areas get in contact to discuss other options. Geelong Pets Direct brings you the same products as the big stores, but at the lowest prices. Head to www.geelongpetsdirect.com.au and check out the range of food, bedding, toys & accessories. Don’t see what you’re looking for? Contact Peter, owner/operator and he’ll do his best to source it for you.
www.geelongpetsdirect.com.au mail@geelongpetsdirect.com.au 0412 905 613
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ARTS
RHONDDA MILLEN SCREENPRINTS + FERNE MILLEN PHOTOGRAPHY 15 - 30 MAY
The individual and collaborative talents of mother and daughter Rhondda Millen and Ferne Millen come together in this exciting joint exhibition at Metropolis Gallery. Rhondda’s “unique state” screenprints interpret a fragmented natural world containing many complex layers, while Ferne aims to capture in her photographs the essence of a person, evoking the deeper story of her subjects. Coming on board as print sponsor for Ferne Millen in the exhibition is Bells Fine Art Printing. Bells have recently opened a Geelong site at 4 Wrights Place. www.metropolisgallery.com.au
ARTISTS POP UP SHOWS 1 – 31 MAY, 10AM – 4PM DAILY
In a first for the gallery, art@wintergarden is set to be transformed during May as two regional artists each week jointly exhibit their work. The studio will be operating and the public are welcome to visit the artists whilst they work on their individual pieces. Week 1: Faye Owen & Lorraine Archibald (1-7 May); Week 2: Deb Jackson & Steve Parkhill (8-14 May); Week 3: Cas Duff & Patsy Bush (15-21 May); Week 4: Pat McKenzie & Marion East (22-31 May). www.artwintergarden.com.au
GEELONG AFTER DARK 8 MAY, 6 – 10PM
For one tantalising night in May, Geelong After Dark offers popup performances, art installations and happenings through the heart of the city - Central Geelong - delighting and surprising everyone with free events from dusk into evening. In Geelong After Dark’s first year last year, more than 6,000 people experienced over 30 spontaneous arts events in four hours. Don’t miss Geelong After Dark 2015. www.geelongafterdark.squarespace.com
BUSINESS NEWS | 32
ARTS “LIGHT WORKS” AND “SHADES”
UNTIL MAY 23, 10AM – 3PM WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY Think light, colour, shade, hue, and shadow for ETCH Gallery and Studios two concurrent exhibitions ‘SHADES’ and ‘LIGHT WORKS,’ designed to complement Geelong After Dark 2015 with the theme of light. It is through light that we perceive colour in all its variations, shades and hues in the world around us. ‘SHADES’ is the exploration and interpretation of this theme by local artists Glenys Bryant, Val Betteridge, Vicki Clissold , Rachel Kirby, Meg Lee, Libbet Loughnan, Helen Lyth, Robyn Mackay, Jai Marshall, Helen Martin, Karen Mayo, Mardi Nichols, Anne Pinkas, Ri Van Veen, dij Vriens and Keren Zorn. ‘LIGHT WORKS’ is a wonderful accompaniment to ‘SHADES’ where artists have engaged their creative minds to produce small sculptures and installations that work with light. These stunning works will be shown in a darkened room to make the most of the effects and materials used by each artist (the works will only be lit up on the night of Geelong After Dark from 6 – 9.30pm).
GLOBE TO GLOBE – HAMLET BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE MAY 28-29
Geelong makes history when Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre Company arrives as part of their mammoth two-year global tour of Hamlet, considered the most all-encompassing of Shakespeare’s plays, exploring universal themes of love, grief, madness, revenge, friendship and death. Shakespeare’s Globe is one of the greatest interpreters of Shakespeare. The production moves like the wind with a focus on language and storytelling. Marking the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth, the London-based company has embarked on an unprecedented theatrical adventure, taking Hamlet to every country in the world, from village squares to national theatres, beaches to palaces. The cast of 12 will travel by boat, sleeper train, jeep, tall ship, bus and airplane across the seven continents – entering Australia from East Timor. www.gpac.org.au
www.etchgalleryandstudios.com
STORM BOY MAY 27-30
A long stretch of beach. A wife and mother recently passed away. Hideaway Tom and his son Storm Boy are living in a humpy, keeping out of sight from the townsfolk. The boy explores the island, goes treasure hunting after every storm and breaks the silence of their lives when he meets Fingerbone Bill – also an outcast. Storm Boy stumbles across three orphaned baby pelicans, tucks them into his woollen jumper and sets about raising them. Adapted for the stage by Tom Holloway, the much-loved Australian story Storm Boy endures across generations and can be retold again and again. This elegant rendering of Colin Thiele’s Australian classic by the Sydney and Barking Gecko Theatre Companies will touch the hearts of those who have loved, lost and felt their nest a little empty or their nets too full of holes. Come and fall in love with Mr Proud, Mr Ponder and Mr Percival all over again. www.gpac.org.au
Top left: ‘Suppression’ dij vriens Middle left: ‘Red Fish Tail’ Rhonda Millen Bottom left: ‘Raphael and his Children’ Ferne Millen Left: ‘Empty Nest 11’ Robyn Mackay Above: ‘Man 6’ Keren Zorn
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THE TECH GUY
EVERY MONTH, OUR TECH GUY, JON MAMONSKI, BRINGS US THE WILDEST, MOST MIND-BLOWING GADGETS HE CAN FIND...
ASUS has announced that the ZenWatch, its first wearable device powered by Android Wear and produced in partnership with Google, is now available at Bing Lee for $289, which makes it a serious competitor to the other brands, especially Apple and Motorola. Once you’ve worn a smart watch, it’s not long before you get used to being reminded of appointments, noticing calls coming to your phone and which Facebook comments you want to respond to or ignore. What’s Next is a really useful and intelligent schedule manager that displays the next important task or event such as appointments, weather updates, birthday and anniversary reminders for important contacts. Do It Later reminds you of items on your to-do list at just the right time. New email, text message and missed call notifications are all seamlessly integrated with Do It Later, so you can create reminders to read and reply to messages.
ASUS GETS SMART
PC ON A STICK Like the idea of Intel’s Compute Stick turning your TV into a full-fledged Linux or Windows PC? You can finally grab your card to get one, now expected to ship by this month rather than the originally planned March release. Resellers are selling the Windows 8.1 version of the Compute Stick for the expected $250, and the Linux version for $200.
ASUS ZenWatch follows the tradition of fine watch craftsmanship with its stylish, detail-focused design and use of high quality materials. Its curved Corning Gorilla Glass 3 display and case that follows the contour of the wrist, combined with a premium, stitched-leather strap with unique clasp, results in a design that is more comfortable and elegant than its main competitor, the Motorola Moto 360. With a standard 22mm changeable strap and a selection of instantly changeable watch faces, ASUS ZenWatch is easy to customise to fit your personality or sense of style. Compatible with all smartphones running Android 4.3 or higher the ASUS ZenWatch will be available at Bing Lee from April for $289. ZenWatch is also available at the ASUS online store on pre-order: shop.asus.com/au
BUSINESS NEWS | 34
THE TECH GUY SCRATCHY RECORD SOUND FROM DIGITAL MUSIC
GOOGLE’S CAR ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM Electronics firm, Pioneer Australia, said it had begun selling two 7-inch display systems compatible with the new Android Auto. Android Auto is driven by a connected Android smartphone with the latest Lollipop 5.0 software installed. Phones such as Google Nexus 5 and 6, HTC One M9 and Samsung’s Galaxy S6 already have it. Pioneer said its two Android Auto compatible models would cost $1149 and $1999. The existence of both Apple Car Play and Android Auto could see the battle lines for the smartphone war spill over into the car market, with a person’s choice of car influenced, to some extent, by their brand of phone and the car system choices on offer.
So, you’ve bought a turntable with hopes of hearing that warm vinyl sound, but you don’t have a record collection just yet. What to do? If you’re Jesse England, he recently built the Universal Record, a device that lets any Bluetooth audio source work with a record player by vibrating a vinyl disc. You can leave the needle stationary if you want relatively clean output, but get it moving and you’ll hear crackles and pops, which is a bit surreal when you’re listening to songs from your phone. It’s a pretty clever way to bring back that analogue feel in a world where MP3s and internet streaming reign supreme.
FULLY CHARGED BATTERY IN A MINUTE At last – battery technology takes a significant leap forward. Lithium-ion batteries have been a boon for the modern world - they’ve replaced the heavier, single-use alkaline type in everything from wristwatches to jumbo jets. Unfortunately, these rechargeable cells are already struggling to keep up with our ever-increasing energy needs. But a new type of aluminium-ion battery developed at Stanford University is not only less explosive than lithium, but also can be built at a fraction of the price and recharges completely in just over a minute. Best of all, “Our new battery won’t catch fire, even if you drill through it,” Stanford chemistry professor, Dai Hongjie, boasted.
360-DEGREE SOUND FROM SAMSUNG The first thing you’ll notice is the ambient music everywhere in the room and no telling where it’s coming from. That’s the effect of Samsung’s new omni-directional speaker. You’ll soon be able to get your hands (and ears) on this portal-esque wireless Samsung speaker that I saw and heard during CES. It’s officially dubbed the Radiant 360 R7 and it’ll be available later this month for $755. The R7 uses Samsung’s new “ring radiator” technology to deliver sound in every direction, meaning you won’t have to worry about where, exactly, you’re placing it. At that price, it might not be the ideal wireless speaker for everyone but, at the very least, it gives Samsung a well-designed entry for its own ecosystem of audio gear. The R7 works with the company’s new Multiroom App, which lets you share music across several devices and, of course, it can connect wirelessly to some of Samsung’s TVs and soundbars.
STRETCHY CIRCUITS ARE A GAME CHANGER Rarely does a new technology have such stupendous impact on our lives. A group of researchers from Purdue University claim they’ve found the right manufacturing process to produce stretch circuits of devices en-masse. Their method entails printing out circuits using an inkjet printer loaded with liquid metal alloy. “This process... allows us to print flexible and stretchable conductors onto anything, including elastic materials and fabrics,” said Rebecca Kramer, one of the researchers. After all, if the circuits are made from liquid metal, they can be stretched, folded, squeezed, and so on and so forth, without breaking and that means we will all be wired one day. Just think what that will mean for our connectivity and communications. Mind boggling, really.
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NATIONAL VOLUNTEER WEEK 11-17 MAY 2015 More than 6 million Australian volunteers give happiness to others each year. Research shows that those volunteers are happier as a result. This National Volunteer Week (11-17 May 2015) help us make Australia the happiest place on earth!
Volunteer to give happy, live happy:
VOLUNTEERINGAUSTRALIA.ORG
#GiveHappyLiveHappy BUSINESS NEWS | 36
From the 11th – 17th of May we celebrate the 16th annual National Volunteer Week. With over 6 million volunteers Australia wide, the week long celebration is held to give us the opportunity to say a big ‘Thank You’ for the often thankless work that is shared amongst our volunteers. Volunteering can come in many forms and across many fields: Community, Schools, Hospitals, Emergency, Environmental, International and more, and we are now seeing companies and small to medium enterprises become involved in corporate volunteering programs (CVPs). Corporate volunteering provides companies with the opportunity to not only deliver much needed help to community organisations, but also to develop staff skills, build teams and strengthen community reputations and relationships. Offering a CVP within your workplace may well also increase the level of balance and contentment amongst your staff, with research showing that people who volunteer their time to help those less fortunate often report increased feelings of happiness, self-worth, satisfaction and respect. Taking this into account, it is more than fitting that this year’s theme for National Volunteer Week is ‘Give Happy, Live Happy’ and encourages us all to help make Australia the happiest place on earth, by giving as much of your time as you can. If you’re looking for more information on how to go about setting up a CVP within your workplace or would like an idea of what kind of volunteer work is needed around the community be sure to head to www.volunteeringgeelong.org.au and www.volunteeringvictoria.org. au where you will find heaps of information and checklists about how to get started. We’ve also provided some great profiles over the next two pages on organisations that do some fantastic work around our region.
Together, we can all ‘Give Happy, Live Happy’. Abbey Sherwell
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Social Support for Older People them to participate in leisure and social activities. DoCare Geelong a not for profit organization, dedicated to providing a range of in home social support services for lonely isolated older people in the Geelong community.
Keeping socially active and having friends in later life can be important for health and wellbeing. Ageing can be lonely, especially through the loss of a partner or someone close to an older person. Many older people may feel lonely when family or relatives do not live nearby. People that become socially isolated, who rarely go out, have few friends or do not see much of their family are sometimes less healthy than those in the broader community. Getting out and keeping involved with people of all ages is a good way to remain healthy and feel at ease with others. Friendships often give individuals a special feeling of trust and closeness, helping
All our services are provided by a dedicated group of 200 or so volunteers providing home visiting services, library book services and social group outings throughout the City of Greater Geelong, Surf Coast Shire, Borough of Queenscliff and Bannockburn. DoCare Geelong is committed to reducing the impact of loneliness for older Geelong and district residents by supporting seniors to lead independent, active, healthy lives without the sense of being isolated in their own homes.
of volunteers that speak English plus another language, assisting older people when language is a barrier to support. If you know of an older person who may benefit from our services, please give us a call. DoCare Geelong is jointly funded by the Australian and Victorian Governments through the Home and Community Care (HACC) program. DoCare Geelong also receives funding support from Give Where You Live (formerly United Way Geelong Region). DoCare Geelong is an endorsed Deductible Gift Recipient and donations of $2 or more maybe tax deductible. Our office is at 3/152 High Street Belmont; you may telephone us on 52981053 or visit our website www.docaregeelong.com.au for further information.
We are always in need of volunteers to help provide these services, if you have a desire to support an older person to continue living in their own home please give us a call. If English is not your first language you will be most welcome as a volunteer at DoCare Geelong. Many older people in Geelong speak another language as well as English. We have a number
Gateways Support Services
Local disability service provider, Gateways Support Services, wishes to thank all their current volunteers for the amazing difference they make in the lives of children and adults with disabilities. Gateways Support Services run a number of group based recreation programs offering a wide variety of fun filled activities for children and adults with disabilities, during term time, at weekends and over school holidays. Gateways rely heavily on the support of their volunteers, to assist at these programs. They are currently looking for more volunteers who are willing to share their time, and support children and young adults with disabilities. When asked about their Gateways volunteering experience, some volunteers said that it ‘was a fantastic life experience’ and felt that they ‘had done something good for the community’.
“Most importantly, I’ve learnt that these kids and young adults are all individuals with their own personality and sense of humour who just want to be treated like any other person in society.” Laura, volunteer.
“If you’ve thought about volunteering, why not give it a go. Even if you just volunteer a few times, it helps organisations like Gateways to keep running and offering great recreational activities.” Laura, volunteer.
“I enjoy going on the outdoor excursions with the children, like Werribee Zoo and watching the faces of the children light up when they see the animals. It’s great to know that you’re doing your bit, helping the children as well as helping the parents have a break too.” Jan, volunteer.
If you would like further information on how you can make a difference in the lives of children with disabilities and become a Gateways volunteer, please contact Toni Wilson, Volunteer Coordinator directly on 03 5221 2984 - www.gateways.com.au
As well as helping out at the recreation programs, volunteers are also needed for the Interchange Host Program. This program matches a young person with a disability with a volunteer host or host family who include them in their own activities on a regular basis. Lesley has 3 children of her own and chose to become an Interchange volunteer as “I wanted to give back to the community. It’s nice to give a break to a parent who has a child with a disability. It’s only a small commitment of a couple of hours a month, so it’s a very flexible program.”
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Call for Mentors by the City of Greater Geelong and the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) to assist their clients into volunteering. The program was created in recognition of the barriers to volunteering that may be experienced by people with a disability and the support that community organisations may need to integrate the program and develop inclusive practices. The Volunteering Geelong Step by Step Volunteer Mentor Program needs Mentors. This is a great opportunity to share your valuable knowledge and experience with a person who has a disability and support them to develop the skills and confidence needed to be a volunteer. No prior mentoring experience is needed, training is provided and the role is short term, around five hours one day per week for around 6-8 weeks. The Step by Step Volunteer Mentor Program was developed some 18 months ago by Volunteering Geelong with the support of the City of Greater Geelong and Barwon Health. The current program is again being supported
that you will gain by sharing your knowledge to support someone else’s goal. TAKE THE FIRST STEP TODAY AND BECOME A MENTOR For more information, contact Lucinda Tucker Volunteering Geelong 5221 1377 Lucinda@volunteeringgeelong.org.au
Volunteering Geelong is currently working with a number of community organisations like Diversitat who will be filling a volunteer administration role through the Step by Step Program. Garry Gow, Manager Training and Education has recruited Ashley and Adam into his team. Following some training for Ashley, Adam and their Mentor their new volunteer roles will commence in the next few weeks with the Mentor supporting the transition period until Ashley and Adam are ready to fly solo. Benefits for Mentors include development or an extension of communication, organisation and leadership skills and an experience that will add to your own health and well-being or perhaps your CV. There is also the sense of achievement Ashley Lunn and Garry Gow
The Power of Volunteering “National Volunteer Week is the perfect time to give volunteering a go and we have some great opportunities on offer during May, including the Winter Workplace Big Day Out.”
Winter Workplace Big Day Out Last year the Karingal BacLinks team helped improve the health and wellbeing of more than 1,000 employees across the Geelong region. They also created opportunities for these people to develop skills and knowledge, helped them foster new friendships, gave them a sense of achievement and personal fulfilment and boosted their self-esteem. Furthermore, Karingal BacLinks helped businesses gain a competitive edge, enhance their customer and supplier relationships and retain employees. These are incredible outcomes and many would be surprised to learn that they were achieved through the simple act of workplace volunteering. In 2014 Karingal BacLinks provided an opportunity for 1028 workplace volunteers to participate in 53 projects and events that supported 120 community organisations. Volunteer activities included gardening, painting and maintenance work at community facilities, spreading mulch at playgrounds, mentoring and taking part in activities such as dancing, soccer, abseiling and fishing alongside disadvantaged youth and people with disabilities.
Date: Thursday 28 May, 2015 About the event: The Winter Workplace Big Day
Karingal BacLinks Manager Joanne Forssman said the theme of this years’ National Volunteer Week, ‘Give Happy. Live Happy.’ was very fitting. “Research has shown that people who volunteer in their community are generally happier people as a result, and we couldn’t agree more,” said Joanne. “Facilitating happiness may not be something people associate with Karingal BacLinks, but it is at the core of what we do by providing employees opportunities to participate in workplace volunteering. “During our volunteer events you can see people gathering confidence, becoming leaders, establishing new friendships and enjoying every minute of the experience. Many of our volunteers return year after year to help at the same event and for others, our events are an introduction to a lifetime of volunteering. That’s not to mention the financial benefits of good corporate social responsibility.
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Out aims to break down barriers between people of all abilities and foster a greater sense of community. Volunteers will spend the day participating in a range of team activities alongside young people with disabilities from Karingal, Encompass and St Laurence. Activities on offer include bowling, badminton, dancing, basketball and soccer.
For further information please contact Karingal BacLinks on 03 5222 7445. www.baclinks.org.au
Photos: Greg Forster, Caprice Photography
WALK RAISES AUTISM AWARENESS Saturday April 10 saw thousands turn out for Geelong’s fourth annual Walk for Autism Awareness at the Waterfront. A charity event to raise understanding of autism, the walk coincided with Autism Awareness month and finished at Eastern Gardens with a BBQ and family entertainment. Walkers carried balloons, a symbol of colour and vibrancy, for autism and released the balloons at the end of the walk in a display of spectacular colour against cloudy skies. Funds raised from the walk, including $9,000 from Lara Rotary Club, will go towards establishing a life skills house in Geelong. Sue Anic, one of the event’s organisers, said the walk was a way of raising awareness and understanding of autism while bringing together families affected by the disorder, who she said often felt alone in their challenges.
“Autistic kids look like you or me, but when they have a meltdown or show different behaviours people often just think they’re naughty and there can be a lot of judgment,” Sue told the Geelong Advertiser after the event. “It would be great if people would take a step back and understand that there is more to it and that for parents and families of autistic kids things often aren’t easy.” The 2012 ABS Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers showed an estimated 115,400 Australians (0.5%) had autism, a 79 per cent increase on the 64,400 people estimated to have the condition in 2009. Greg Forster of Caprice Photography who photographed the day as a way of “visually showcasing what can be accomplished when a charity bands together for a cause,” said he hoped his photos “go some way to drawing attention to a better understanding of autism in our community.”
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COMMUNITY NEWS MASTERS GAMES TAKE A CHARITABLE APPROACH IN ADELAIDE
name DoCare will be perpetuated as Karingal DoCare for the foreseeable future.
The 15th Australian Masters Games, to be held in Adelaide in October, will have a strong charity focus as the 10,000 strong Games community looks to support some notable health related organisations.
EASTERN GEELONG COMMUNITY CENTRE ON TARGET
Organisers say for the first time in Games history there will be three charities supported through strategic partnerships with national organisations beyondblue and the McGrath Foundation, as well as the Asthma Foundation South Australia. Each of the charities is focused on a different health issue, depression and anxiety, asthma and breast cancer. Organising committee advisory board chair, Chris Dittmar, said it was important for the Games to support the community through charitable partnerships. “By aligning ourselves with these three charities, the Australian Masters Games has the opportunity to raise both awareness and funds for these important causes. “Unfortunately there are people experiencing hardship via health issues on a daily basis, but fortunately there are organisations such as these able to provide outstanding support and tangible assistance. We are proud to be associated with them,” Chris said. “Participants can donate to the charity of their choice when they register for the Games, and there will be additional opportunities to donate throughout the event week, including at themed functions.” Donations can also be made to the three charities by visiting the Charity Partners page at www.australianmastersgames.com (under the Games Info tab). The Australian Masters Games is a mass participation sporting event for anyone over the age of 30, attracting over 10,000 participants across approximately 60 sports ranging from athletics to basketball to parachuting to weightlifting. The 15th edition is in Adelaide from the 3 - 10 October 2015. Entries are now open at www.australianmastersgames.com.
DOCARE AND KARINGAL AMALGAMATION SET FOR JULY Local community service organisation DoCare Geelong will merge with Karingal in July following approval from the respective boards last month. Docare Geelong, which provides proactive social support for older people, approached Karingal last year about the prospect of merging, according to Karingal Chief Executive Officer, Daryl Starkey. “[It] became evident that there were opportunities to strengthen aged care services for the local community,” Daryl said. “We envisage that the service area of aged and frail-aged care will be growing rapidly in coming years and an amalgamation of our organisations will better place us to enhance and grow services in this critical area of support.” Karingal and DoCare management teams agree the move is a good fit for both organisations and presents an opportunity to provide enhanced services for current and prospective aged care clients. “DoCare Geelong has over 35 years’ experience in providing social support for older people in the Geelong area,” DoCare Geelong Chief Executive Officer, Stuart Muller, said. “The merger with Karingal will build on this experience and see social support continue in a more integrated service.” DoCare staff will be offered ongoing employment with Karingal, while DoCare volunteers will continue in their existing roles. The
The Karingal Foundation has so far raised $461,410 towards the Eastern Geelong Community Centre (EGCC) Appeal and is well on the way to reaching its $2 million target, thanks to incredible community and business support. Karingal Foundation Executive Officer, Caroline Moore, said the appeal had been successful in many ways. “We are very privileged to be part of such a generous regional community who value the importance of inclusive practice,” she said. “While this figure is a great achievement, equally important is that the appeal has also raised awareness about the need to acknowledge issues surrounding accessibility and embrace inclusive community engagement. “The EGCC will bring the entire community together by offering programs to cater for people of all ages and abilities. Everyone will be welcome at the centre and it will play an important role in helping enrich the lives of so many people in the immediate future and for many generations to come.” Caroline thanked everyone who has supported the Appeal to date and especially acknowledged the Karingal Hundred Hole Hikers and everyone who supported them, the Geelong Community Foundation, the Adroit Insurance Charity Golf Day, The Alcoa Foundation, the Percy Baxter Trust and all private donors. She said the challenge now is to continue the momentum and further fundraising events are planned for later in the year.
GET INVOLVED IN THE WINTER WORKPLACE BIG DAY OUT Each year local businesses are sent out the challenge by BacLinks to volunteer their services to the community for a day. The Winter Workplace Big Day Out involves workplace volunteers supporting and having fun alongside people with a disability for a day. Activities may include ten pin bowling, art and craft, tai chi, cricket, netball, soccer, bocce, dancing, martial arts, ball games, waterslides, canoeing and mini golf just to mention a few. Workplace Big Day Outs are held twice a year and provide an opportunity for businesses to put something back into the community in which they operate as well providing the chance for employees to think and work outside the square they generally operate within. Many businesses use this day as a great networking opportunity (given the range of businesses who participate), for staff training and team building, to thank staff by providing them with an opportunity to try something different, or as a practical way to contribute and be connected with their community. To register for this year’s Big Day Out on 28 May at Leisuretime Centre Bell Post Hill visit www.baclinks.org.au/workplace-bigday-out
ONE LAST THING…. Don’t forget the Give Where You Live MAYDAY Appeal this month. Can you take the MAYDAY challenge and donate $1 a day to your community throughout May? To register for a Donation Tin, or to set up your own MAYDAY Challenge fundraising page, email mayday@givewhereyoulive. com.au or phone 5229 4364.
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COMMUNITY
GEELONG WOMEN JOIN FORCES FOR BEST FOOT FORWARD Disadvantaged women from around Geelong were given a helping hand to build the confidence and skills they need to re-enter the workforce with assistance from Target Australia and Business Professional Women (BPW) Geelong at the Karingal BacLinks Best Foot Forward event on April 22, 2015. Twenty-two long-term unemployed Geelong women, aged between 35 and 55, who are registered MatchWorks job seekers took part in the event. Each participant faces multiple barriers to securing employment such as a lack of self-esteem and confidence, financial strain, health issues, inadequate transport or a limited work history. Throughout the day, volunteers from BPW Geelong and Target Australia worked with Karingal BacLinks to deliver a range of workshops focusing on areas such as self-esteem, professional presentation and advice on interview skills. Participants also received hair and make-up treatments from The Centre of Excellence and, thanks to a generous donation from Target Australia, they were also given some professional clothing to keep that will help them feel and look the part when attending interviews. Karingal BacLinks Manager, Joanne Forssman, said it was fantastic that BPW Geelong supported this event for the second year in a row, with 15 volunteers to assist on the day. “This event wouldn’t have been possible without the enthusiasm and support of the BPW Geelong members and their willingness to volunteer their time to help the women invo “Together the BPW
members have a wealth of professional skills and knowledge to offer and we are thrilled to be able to tap into this resource and share it with those in need.” BPW Geelong Vice President, Cal Stewart, said the Best Foot Forward event was an excellent fit with their group’s focus of supporting local women. “BPW Geelong members are very focused on being able to support women from within our own community, so this event provided us with the perfect opportunity to do just that,” said Cal. “The most rewarding part for me personally was seeing the difference we can make in such a short space of time. The transformation of these women was amazing, and giving up such a small amount of my time to assist was well and truly worthwhile.” Target Australia Community and Sustainability Manager, David Donelly, said he hoped their donation of clothing, shoes, handbags and cosmetics helped participants feel good about themselves, which will help build their self-esteem and confidence; an essential component to being work-ready. “We have supported local Karingal BacLinks programs for many years, they do fantastic work helping disadvantaged Australians find life-changing employment,” David said. “The Best Foot Forward program is all about making people look good and feel great and that’s what we at Target are really passionate about. It was a privilege to support a program that makes a real difference in so many people’s lives.”
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MatchWorks set to expand Local not-for-profit job services provider MatchWorks is set for business growth following the Federal government’s ‘Jobactive’ employment service tender announcement released at the end of March this year.
good match between the employer and employee is of the upmost importance.
MatchWorks, a division of community services organisation Karingal Inc., has increased its employment services business share in Victoria and has new contracts, on top of existing Disability Employment Services contracts, in South Australia and Queensland.
From small beginnings of two small sites in 1998, MatchWorks has grown rapidly and now supports over 22,000 job seekers annually from its 57 service locations across Victoria, Queensland and South Australia. This number of job seekers will grow to over 25,000 following the commencement of the government’s Jobactive program on 1 July 2015 when MatchWorks will open a further 21 service locations across the three states.
The organisation has also gained Work for the Dole (WfD) contracts in the Victorian regions of Barwon, Bendigo, Inner Metro Melbourne, North Eastern Melbourne and North Western Melbourne. As a result of the tender, MatchWorks will be opening four new full-time Jobactive sites in Victoria, as well as a significant number of part-time and outreach sites, and will be looking to employ up to 100 new staff across all sites, including new jobs in the Geelong region. The results come as welcome news for the local provider that prides itself on building strong relationships with local businesses and finding the best employees for their organisation; believing a
MatchWorks’ General Manager, Michael Wasley, said he was delighted with the growth in this new contract. “We are very pleased MatchWorks has achieved this business growth, which sees us now placed as the fifth largest Jobactive provider in the country. We are looking forward to the expansion of our organisation, working with more employers and placing more job seekers.” The new WfD Coordinator contracts start 1 May 2015. Along with Jobactive and WfD services, MatchWorks will continue to deliver Disability Employment Services.
“Every year MatchWorks supports 10,000 employers to fill jobs“ BIZNEWSMAG.COM.AU | 43
TIME HONOURED
A FAMILY BUSINESS IN THE BUSINESS OF FAMILIES
C
aring for Geelong families during some of their toughest and most vulnerable days has been the business of the King family for 60 years and across three generations. But for business founder, Max King, for Michael and Louise King and now Beth King, the basic values of respect, dignity and fairness, of having concern for others and working hard have extended far beyond the office doors. A returned RAAF serviceman, Max King put his French polishing skills to work finishing beautiful coffins and established King Funerals in May 1955. Over the next 28 years he would take the business from a small, humble operation to one that supported one in every ten families requiring funerals in Geelong. But for Max, there was much more to life than just business. He played an important role in helping migrant families to settle in to Geelong’s northern suburbs during the industrial era and would drive to Bell Park each week to bus migrants in the Polish community to church. “At this time there was no public transport in Geelong and, indeed, no drainage on Thompsons Road. They used to bring gumboots with them,” said Kings Funerals General Manager and granddaughter to Max, Beth King. Michael King joined his father in the family business in 1983 and the two worked on growing the business until Max’s death in 1994. Like his father, Michael kept the focus of the business on continuing to provide excellent service, but he also brought a drive for innovation, developing new technology-based services. Kings was the first Australian funeral business on the internet in 1994 and Michael was instrumental in developing funeral services that reflected how the world was changing, how people were living. From DVD photo presentations that allowed families and friends to see a life in pictures, to eTributes and webcasting, that brought interactivity, reflecting how far flung families and loved ones can be, and that not everyone can make it back home for a funeral. For Beth, technology has always been a driver of innovation in the family business. “We got our first computer in 1985 and pioneered a phone link up system in 1995 that was later picked up around the country. We have offered webcasting since 2011 and installed new systems in our chapels in 2014. In 2011 we were the first funeral company in Australia to launch eTributes, where people from around the world can share memories of their deceased relatives and friends. There are now over twelve companies nationally using this technology.”
With Michael as Managing Director, the business now supports one in every three Geelong families requiring a funeral, having expanded from one premises to three, in Geelong, Newcomb and Grovedale. And, like Max, Michael has spread his interests and attention far beyond the business, playing an active role in advocating for a sustainable future for Geelong and the wider region. He has been a Councillor and Deputy Mayor, the Chairman of Barwon Water, Deputy Chairman of St Laurence and a board member of G21, The Gordon and the Committee for Geelong as well as working as a Board Member with the National and Victorian Small Business Advisory Council. There is a strong enterprising approach throughout the family, with Beth and her mother Louise, who founded Louise King Funerals by Women, also playing an important role in the direction of the King’s business. I asked Beth why she thinks the family has had, and continues to have, such an active role in the economic and social development of the city. “We are interested in people and seeing their successes. We have seen being involved with local government, not-for-profit organisations and business groups as a means to achieve good outcomes with people. “Michael worked with Colin Atkins and his team at the Geelong Regional Commission in the 1970s working on how Geelong can drive economic development. In fact, Michael wrote a paper in 1979 to the Geelong Promotion Committee on the need for a Convention Centre. He also wrote a business case for floodlighting St Mary’s Church. “Michael has studied the theory of local economic development and has implemented this in his business and board positions with a particular focus on how good policy can create employment opportunities and contain cost of living pressures,” she said. Across the past six decades, throughout the changes, the growth and development and the many and varied new projects both within and outside of the business, it seems the King family has never lost sight of the fundamental keys to the business’ success first instituted by Max all those years ago: respect, dignity and fairness, being active and working hard.
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AFTER HOURS
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A CELEBRATION FIT FOR KINGS Over 160 business and community representatives attended a celebration at Lyndon Grove in Grovedale on April 28 to mark the 60 years and three generations of care and giving to the community. To a backdrop of Kings family photos and insights from Michael and Beth King was added a rather wonderful speech by Father Kevin Dillon that reinforced the contribution the family has made the Geelong community.
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6. 7. 1. Michael King, Beth King, Louise King 2. Damien DeGrandi, Joe Adamski, Dan Simmonds 3. Marina Bisinella, Lino Bisinella, Father Kevin Dillon 4. Pete rBurnett, Bob Spurling 5. Ray Neil, Carol Bradford 6. Barry Fagg, Jan Fagg, Andrew Lawson 7. Des Guinane, Richard Bisinella, Patrick Rowan 8. Michael Cave, Justin Giddings, James Baird
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Photos by Alan Barber, Bare Foot Media Photography
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AFTER HOURS
A SPECTACULAR NEW DIRECTION FOR PATHWAYS Geelong’s largest community mental health service provider, Pathways, unveiled it’s new strategic direction and branding in a spectacularly colourful event at the Carousel on the Waterfront last month. Pathways CEO, Adrian Buckley, said the time was right for the organisation to clarify its future direction as they adapt their service response to the people they serve in line with the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). “We’re at the coal face of change as part of the Barwon Trial Site and there is no question that community mental health services are being challenged by aspects of the NDIS trial,” said Mr Buckley. “But it is also fantastic that we are able to feed back the reality of what services are needed by people with mental health challenges.”
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The new branding, with its “Be Spectacular” mantra is, Mr Buckley said, ‘about all of us being the best we can possibly be. Guest speaker at the launch, Helen Glover, shared her knowledge about recovery, based on her lived experience of mental illness.
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5. 1. Mary-anne Sebastiani 2. Brooke Baxter, Adrian Buckley 3. Kate Morrissy, Katrina De Grandi 4. Stephanie Asher, Philippa Bakes, Adrian Buckley, Helen Glover, Paul Kelly, Morgan Connoley, Peter Cooper
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5. Brad Keating, Jennifer Cromarty, John Fitzgerald
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AFTER HOURS
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ENGINEERED TO SLIDE The members of Geelong Young Professionals and guests gathered at Truffleduck last month to hear the journey of seriously creative local spirit, Nigel Petrie. Nigel spent two and a half years building a Hilux drift ute in his garage after work, and took on the World Attack Time Challenge (WTAC) with his Hilux four times. The story of his Hilux and his 2013 WTAC attempt was made into a documentary, Dream.Build.Drive. Working full-time at Ford in Geelong, Nigel has creates custom motorbikes and automotive art, and his latest endeavour, building a motorbike for the 2015 DLRA Speedweek at Lake Gairdner in South Australia is the subject of a second documentary.
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5. 1. Nigel Petrie - Event Speaker 2. Caleb Plumridge, Nigel Petrie, Jess McGlinchey, Bridgette Kelly, Nikki De Dios, Pat Hoey 3. Mark Smith - Event Sponsor - People@Work 4. Bridgette Kelly - Harwood Andrews
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5. Nick Howard, Matthew Iannelli, Brendan Veitch, Daniel French, Jake Clarke, Paige Murphy 6. Jodie Rivett, Simone Gellion - Cotton On Group
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AFTER HOURS
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JOINING THE CROWD
The Geelong College hosted the Geelong Chamber of Commerce April After 5 and Annual General Meeting. The chill outside did nothing to deter a strong crowd numbering in the hundreds from across the business community gathering for the AGM to hear the rundown of the year gone by and the Chamberâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s plans for the year ahead. And Geelong Business News publisher, Adcell Group, was amongst the ever-growing ranks of new members for 2015. We may pride ourselves on our independence, but it has to be said, sometimes itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s kind of nice to join the crowd.
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AFTER HOURS
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9. 1. Tony & Debbie Spence, Denise Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Neill Schlank & Ross Hultgren 2. Nigel Robinson & Sean Blood 3. Tracey & Tony Dickson 4. Mark Sanders & Neville Wright 5. Philippa Challis, Robert & Julie Hunter 6. Les Watson, Mark Edmonds & Gordon Jenkins 7. Alicia Wood, Lousie Doedee & Roxie Bennett 8. Bernadette Uzelac, Andrew Senia, Jennefer West & Mandy Lovett 9. Kate Betts, Barry Fagg, Dr Hugh Seward & Kylie Warne 10. Kylie Warne & Davina Montgomery
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STUFF
All items appearing in this edition can be found at sunglass dog canvas
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BOOKS
17 CARNATIONS Andrew Morton
The true story of Edward Windsor and Wallis Simpson’s involvement with the Nazi regime, and the post-war cover up makes for fascinating reading. The King who chose love over his throne and the woman who inspired this adoration have long been figures of fascination, and this extraordinary story one of the greatest cover-ups of the Second World War details how the abdicator and his American wife became implicated in international espionage. Drawing on FBI documents, material from German, Russian, and British royal archives, personal correspondence and previously unpublished photographs, the book details how an affair between Wallis Simpson and high-ranking Nazi Joachim von Ribbentrop led to a saga of intrigue, betrayal and deception. Von Ribbentrop sent seventeen carnations to Simpson daily – one flower to signify each heady night they spent as lovers. The gesture did not escape the attention of the Allied high command.
A ROBOT IN THE GARDEN Deborah Install A Robot in the Garden is the warm-hearted fable of a stay-at-home husband who learns an important lesson in life when an unusual creature enters his life. This is the story of a friendship assembled from something no one else wanted and becomes something everyone needs, in one form or another. Ben Chambers wakes up to find something rusty and lost underneath the willow tree in his garden. Refusing to throw it on the skip as his wife Amy advises, he takes it home. In his quest to fix the little robot, Tang, Ben will travel far from everything he knows. Disarming and funny, whimsical and wise, A Robot in the Garden is a break from the everyday that is well worth taking.
MAKE SOMETHING UP Chuck Palahniuk From the ever-transgressive author of Fight Club come twenty-one stories and a novella that will disturb and delight. The absurdity of both life and death are on full display; in ‘Zombies’, the best and brightest of a high school prep school become tragically addicted to the latest drug craze: electric shocks from cardiac defibrillators. In ‘Knock, Knock’, a son hopes to tell one last off-colour joke to his dying father, while in ‘Tunnel of Love’, a massage therapist runs the curious practice of providing ‘relief’ to dying clients. And in ‘Excursion’, fans will find a side of Tyler Durden never seen before in a precusor story to Fight Club. Funny, caustic, bizarre and poignant; these stories represent everything readers have come to love and expect from Chuck Palahniuk.
STEPHEN FRY’S INCOMPLETE & UTTER HISTORY OF CLASSICAL MUSIC Stephen Fry & Tim Lihoreau The wonderfully witty and aurally-sticky (just try to get his voice out of your head), Stephen Fry presents a potted and brilliantly rambling 700-year history of classical music and the world as we know it. Along this musical journey he casually throws in references to pretty much whatever takes his fancy, from the Mongol invasion of Russia and Mr Khan (Genghis to his friends), the founding of the MCC, the Black Death (which once again became the new black in England), to the heady revolutionary atmosphere of Mozart’s Don Giovanni and the deep doo-doo that Louis XVI got into (or ‘du-du’ as the French would say). It’s all here - Ambrose and early English plainsong, Bach, Mozart (beloved of mobile phones everywhere), Beethoven, Debussy, Wagner (the old romantic), right up to the present day. Entertaining and brilliantly written, this is a pretty reckless romp of a history through classical music and much, much more.
BIZNEWSMAG.COM.AU | 51
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