A new plan to make Tasmania the “start-up capital of Australia” by simplifying the permitting process for small businesses has been revealed by the state government.
The Small Business Start-Up Permit will enable new businesses to trial their concept for 12 months with a single permit, reducing the need for multiple individual approvals from local and state government departments.
“Tasmania is already the state of entrepreneurs and innovators, but we want our state to be the best place in the nation to start a new business,” Premier Jeremy Rockliff said.
“This single permit means those entrepreneurs and innovators can launch a new business without investing significant time, money and other resources required to secure long-term permits.”
The initiative will allow new businesses to gradually obtain relevant state and local government permits over the 12-month period, enabling them to open their doors sooner.
It comes after Rockliff announced earlier this week that he would be slashing red tape for businesses across the state, claiming it takes 37 licences to open a café and 26 licences to open a retail shop.
Work to implement the Small Business Start-Up Permit is underway and expected to be in place this year.
Michael Bailey from the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said the new permit will “supercharge our economy”.
“We’ll become known as a place in the world where you can trial your business really easily and see if there’s actually a business case for you to continue,” he said.
“I expect we’ll see not only more Tasmanians taking up business ideas, but also mainlanders coming here to trial their business.”
Marshall Pooley, owner of X-Golf in Launceston, said the permit would have made a “big difference” to his business.
“There’s a development application with council, a building application, then there’s food licence with the council, liquor licence and then other stuff and other requirements for what we have to do with the X-Golf franchise,” he said.
“Just the liquor licence alone … took us up to five months sort of to-ing and fro-ing back with the commissioner to get that approved and then get us actually operating.”
“It ends up being quite a lengthy process, not only in terms of dollars for licences, but also the time and the cost for our staff and also our time to get that off the ground.”
Tasmanian Labor Leader Dean Winter said today’s announcement is a “distraction” from the state government’s budget handling.
“The Liberals have been in government for 11 years and all of a sudden Jeremy Rockliff has realised that it takes 37 permits to open a cafe. I mean, it beggars belief,” he said.
“We know there is too much red tape and that’s why we’ve been announcing policies like our night-time economy policy to make it easier for hospitality organisations to start up, to grow their business.”
