MAKING FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES STRONG THOUGH SMALL BUSINESS

Making Families and Communities Strong Through Small Business Mara West, Honours Thesis, Murdoch University, 2007They encourage employed and unemployed people to set upsmall businesses, reduce the failure rate of those businessesand assist them to operate efficiently, creating new jobs as theyexpand and graduate from the incubator (DEETYA 1998: p4).Another submission presented was by Rio Tinto who reported on itsinitiative to assist Gumala Aboriginal Corporation to establish GumalaEnterprises, a successful business venture that now has threedivisions, Gumala Contracting (fully owned and managed), Eurest-Gumala joint venture (40% interest) and Eco Retreat Karijini (Fullyowned and under third party management). The paper pointed out thebenefits of working together with Aboriginal communities and Federaland State government agencies to effectively use programs such asthe former ATSICs Indigenous Business Incentive Programmes (IBIP),the former DEETYAs Training for Aboriginals Programme (TAP) andthe Community Development Employment Programme (CDEP), todevelop partnerships that contribute to Indigenous employment andeconomic independence. They highlighted the following concerns:Lack of effective co-ordination of planning/budgeting issues where itwas pointed out that business and government timetables differedgreatly where government programs funded on an annual basismade it difficult for Aboriginal communities to plan long termstrategies and to take advantage of business and employmentopportunities that required a quick response.Lack of effective communication between government and industrywhere Rio Tinto have tried unsuccessfully to work with governmentdepartments at the local level to combine resources for communitydevelopment.There were very few government staff who were experienced inbusiness development.The need for mentoring and training for business planning anddevelopment specifically how business works.Aboriginal people still don’t have access to essential professionalservices such as accounting services, commercial legal advice andtaxation and business planning expertise.The need to support smaller family businesses and independentcontractors to enable people to build a broader economic base.The former Henry Walker Group Ltd also raised concerns regarding thedifficulties encountered when negotiating with Aboriginal groups andland councils as well as the myriad of government agencies andprograms. It was proposed that there was a need for a ‘one stop shop’to improve the processes of developing Indigenous businesses.Innovative Financial Management and Double W Associates identifiedvarious projects they had worked on in concert with Aboriginalcommunities in the Northern Territory particularly the IndigenousEnterprise Development Pilot Project. This Project was established todemonstrate that success in business was more likely at the individual,family or small group level than the community enterprise level. They17