Noel Dyson

“LOSING money in this business is very easy,” says Clough Limited managing director Brian Hewitt.“You have to learn from those bad experiences,” Dr Hewitt said.

TAKING on new employees is one of the biggest challenges a small business will face.Combined Small Business Associations of WA president Oliver Moon said labour costs were the most significant small business costs.

FAILING to market a small business is as fatal as not taking care of its finances.

THE new tax system has resulted in fundamental changes to the way Australians do business and even more changes are in the pipeline. CPA Australia, Australia’s largest professional body of finance, accounting and business advisors, has issued some timely

THE Australian Labor Party’s WA branch seems close to negotiating a truce with unions over its labour relations policy.

LAURA Taylor has been appointed CEO of the Dôme group as Dôme Coffees Australia consolidates its position in the Australian coffee market.

INDEPENDENTS are likely to decide the outcome of the next WA Government election, says former WA Liberal Party leader turned political lobbyist Barry MacKinnon.

PEOPLE will soon start feeling the pain of the high interest rates of the late 1980s, early 1990s.

AFTER little more than two months in operation, Elders Rural Bank has attracted more than $100 million in retail deposits.

TOO many investors are missing the opportunities offered by international managed funds, says Plan B director Craig Lubich.

IT’S not often that the Australian Army is ready, willing and able to place an order for 1000 tanks, armoured personnel carriers, and self-propelled guns.

THERE is confusion in many areas of the GST. Here, CPA Australia answers some questions as to how the GST applies to a range of business issues.

A RECENT court case in Victoria could have serious repercussions for WA local governments seeking to outsource.The Federal Court found a Victorian council had unfairly dismissed employees when it attempted to outsource its health care division.

THE following company personnel changes have been notified to the WA office of the Australian Stock Exchange:Joseph Taylor has been appointed as Director of Atlas Pacific Limited.

WA’S independent grocers are disappointed with the long-awaited Retail Grocery Industry Code of Conduct.The voluntary code is part of the Federal Government’s response to last year’s Fair Market or Market Failure report.

COMMUNITY banking has hit Perth with a bang, with the first metropolitan offering opening in Bayswater on September 9.While figures have not been released for its first week of operation, initial indications show it has been successful.Bendigo Bank WA

SUCCESSION planning is looming as one of the fastest growing sections of the financial planning area.Recent scenes of the family behind engineering giant Transfield slugging it out in the courts show why some form of succession plan is needed.

WA IS missing out on a potential flood of business migrants due to an application processing hold-up in Indonesia.

CONFIDENCE is returning to the WA small business sector, according to the latest Yellow Pages Small Business Index.It found 61 per cent of WA small businesses had confidence in their business prospects for the next 12 months.

CLOUGH Limited has reported a net profit of $25.1 million, down 10.7 per cent on the previous year thanks to a potential $12 million in losses in India and Indonesia.Its revenue was down 16.3 per cent on the previous year to $541.2 million

THE Annual General Meeting of an organisation set up to encourage business development between the world’s leading oil cities has been hosted by the Perth City Council.

Perth established house prices increased 7 per cent over the year to the June quarter compared with the national-average 9.7 per cent increase.Compared with the March quarter prices rose 2.5 per cent in Perth.

FOLLOWING a career spanning airlines, financial services and property, John Schaap has taken the job of turning Burswood Resort Casino from a yield stock to a growth stock.

Economy: The RBA at its 5th September Board meeting decided to leave official interest rates as expected unchanged, but we continue to forecast a further rate increase before Christmas.

SMALL businesses should be compensated for acting as tax collectors for the GST, says WA Retail Association chief executive Martin Dempsey.

Franklin Tate didn’t listen. He was not interested in the knockers, the doubters, the doomsayers.

TRUE competition in the setting of merchant and bank credit card interchange fees will drop prices by an average of one per cent, says Retail Traders Association manager Brian Reynolds.

*Weakness in the TLS share price reflects markets concerns about the sustainability and quality of future earnings growth given increased competition in its traditional areas of business and rise in non-labour costs

METROPOLITAN councils should be allowed to give local firms and consultants preference on tenders, says Town of Vincent Mayor John Hyde.

THE WA Government encourages business migrants to WA by offering funds to help them relocate.

A $22 billion deal to supply liquefied natural gas from WA’s North West Shelf to Taiwan may be in jeopardy.The deal is to supply gas to Taiwan’s electricity transmission and distribution monopoly Taipower.

N M ROTHSCHILD & Sons (Australia) Limited is expanding its Perth banking operations to service a broader range of industries.