Community Alliance Party

The Community Alliance Party seeks to foster a healthy business sector to serve as a vital foundation of a prosperous ACT. The Alliance will work with businesses, communities, and government agencies to encourage the growth of businesses that are community friendly, environmentally sustainable, and socially responsible.

The Alliance aims to reverse the restrictive or unfavourable business climate that has persisted in the ACT through bureaucratic red-tape and selective or anti-competitive practices. The Alliance seeks to encourage and nurture small and local businesses as key employers and producers, while recognising the value of big business in broadening the ACT’s economic base and contributing to large-scale infrastructure projects and high tech research and development.

Regulation

• The Alliance expects the ACT government not to play favourites, but to treat all companies in a fair and equitable manner.
• The Alliance concurs with the preference of business for a simple, consistent, and stable regulatory environment.
• The Alliance will ensure that the ACT government maintains reliable channels of communication to the business community, listens to its concerns across the full spectrum of relevant policy areas, and where possible acts upon them.
• The Alliance will bring payroll taxes in the ACT into line with those of NSW.

Support

• The Alliance supports balanced growth, decentralisation, and diversification of the ACT economy.
• The Alliance recognises that the creation of an excellent living environment in the ACT is the most effective way to attract new businesses and to retain existing ones.
• The Alliance supports investment in local business to help strengthen the ACT economy by taking a leading role in the development of sustainable industries.
• The Alliance believes in helping local businesses by dividing large government contracts into discrete smaller contracts wherever practicable.
• The Alliance supports a review of retail tenancy laws for small businesses to prevent exploitation by large shopping centres.
• The Alliance believes the ACT Government needs to work with the ACT business community to ensure that they are supported in maintaining employment and training opportunities for those entering the workforce, changing jobs, or moving towards retirement.
• The Alliance believes that where Government assistance is offered to business, they should be businesses that will encourage long-term employment stability in the ACT.
• The Alliance supports the construction of well-designed data centres as the type of hi-tech industry Canberra needs to diversify its economic base. However, development should only occur after proper community consultation and subject to full health and environmental impact assessments.
• The Alliance will work with business and governments to promote and develop Canberra as a national and international convention centre.