MAKING FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES STRONG THOUGH SMALL BUSINESS

Making Families and Communities Strong Through Small Business Mara West, Honours Thesis, Murdoch University, 2007make time to fly to Perth to secure the funding and when he met withATSIC officials they indicated it was still going through the approvalprocess. He said this was the last straw that made him really mad. Itforced the ATSIC Officer to chased up the paperwork and put things inmotion for Bulldog to receive the cheque. The moment he was handedhis cheque, there was no further contact with ATSIC. Bulldog stated:If the government is concerned about where public dollars are spentthen shouldn’t there be some evaluation and monitoring process inplace especially in terms of lone operators. Their policy seems to be“out of sight out of mind”. The idea of letting people get on with thebusiness and if there are any problems the business operators cancontact them is a recipe for businesses failing. If support is continuedthroughout the life of the funding allocation, and this means regularvisits to businesses as well as contact through the electronic mediumthere may be more successful businesses.Operating in remote locations brings isolation and the tyranny ofdistance becomes very real. It makes it hard to build networks andsource information. Whenever there is a breakdown of the machinerythe waiting time, the time it takes to track down parts and the paperworkinvolved means loss of money and income. Bulldog has to make time totravel to Carnarvon, the nearest regional centre to order and pick upparts. When contracts are advertised he usually hears about them afterthey’ve been awarded however if he did receive the information on timehe is still disadvantaged as he doesn’t have the time to write thesubmission. Bunjima usually has to transport the truck back to base inPerth for repairs and not being part of big business means they don’thave the luxury of having the use of another truck. Repairs and fuelcosts are exhorbitant so every dollar made is invested back into thebusiness.5.3.3. Support from Service Providers eg IBA, DIA, DLGRDFor Bulldog it’s taken time to establish support from the Gascoyne Shireand Local Government and since then the Shire has bent overbackwards to keep him operating. This benefits both parties as they canapply for funding and it’s in the Shire’s best interest to supportIndigenous business. However he gets no support from the CarnarvonShire even though they know about his operations and his office is basedin Carnarvon. After eight years of operating a representative from theIBA which took over the enterprise operations following the demise ofATSIC, through whom the initial funding was allocated, finally visited. ‘Tomeet someone from the funding body in person and talk personally aboutthe operations of the business was a surprise and now means there is a“real” person I can contact in IBA’.The opportunity for Bunjima to purchase a truck arose with the truckingcompany they were with at the time. They approached ATSIC for adviceand a business loan but the process was too long so they had noalternative but to seek funding elsewhere. They sought funding through34