Noel Dyson

It is official. Running a business is bad for your health – and for your marriage.

WA’S agribusiness future lies in taking part wholly in the Indo-nesian food industry, not just exporting, according to a report from Murdoch University’s Asia Research Centre.

A WA Government-formed committee, complete with statutory powers, could be helping to decided the planning of the Perth CBD.

AS PETROL sale margins fall petrol station owners are turning their stations into mini supermarkets.

SEX and gambling have drawn two mining companies into .com ventures.

THE much heralded Old Swan Brewery redevelopment is in danger of becoming another block of flats – with a service station attached.

IT IS hoped to foster stronger relations between business and academia when Curtin Business School hosts the inaugural Business Education and Research conference on 14 and 15 October.

AN INVESTMENT of $800,000 by the WA Government has netted $3.4 million from the Fisheries Research Development Corpora-tion for thirteen fisheries’ research projects.

EMPLOYERS and employees could soon be negotiating their own workers’ compensation packages if a new proposal is accepted.

SHOPPING centres face the threat of major legal payouts to crime victims because they have been miserly with security, a WA security firm warns.

DESPITE the recent Asian financial crisis the Asian consumer is alive and well. Asia’s halcyon days prior to the crisis have left Asians with a taste for consumer goods.

WA PETROL station owners say rules preventing them from selling liquor are at odds with the National Competition Policy.

EDUCATION will help stamp out price exploitation when the GST comes in, says Australian Competition and Con-sumer Commission chairman Allan Fels.

COUNCIL has balked at leasing its Perth Concert Hall for five years because it is not sure the prospective lessee actually exists.

Crustaceans are abundant in the oceans off the WA coast, and live happily in the state’s rivers and dams. But when the owners of a traditional wheat and sheep farming property started marketing yabbies, it raised a few eyebrows.

COUNCIL has forgone $2 million to keep the public open space at Arden Street in East Perth.

THE omission of a safety net clause for contracts spanning 1 July 2000 in the GST legislation could cost WA small businesses nearly $6 million says the Institute of Chartered Accountants Small Business Committee’s Ian Costley.

ON JULY 1, the sun will set on the body regulating state-based building societies and credit unions, the Australian Financial Institutions Commission.

INCREASED immigration would impact badly on Australia’s unemployment but be good for the economy, according to the latest Morgan & Banks Job Index.

THE National Australia Bank hopes to raise up to $2 billion by means of an innovative investment scheme.

WA continued to be the greatest contributor, in absolute and relative terms, to Australian exports for the March quarter 1999, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

AN AUSTRALIAN delegation is heading to Silicon Valley in the US to learn from its venture capitalists.The trade mission includes ‘home-grown’ Australian venture capital funds and Aust-ralian representatives of major regional funds.

WA SMALL businesses, especially those with more than 20 employees, are leading in the number of Australian firms showing a profit, according to latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Australian Business Longitudinal Survey.

CENTRALISED credit decision making by the major banks is contributing to WA’s insolvency crisis, says Castle Gates managing director John McGlue.

SOLAHART Industries, Noranda Primary School, Steens Gray and Kelly, Ellenbrook Management and Rob Horn are among the winners of this year’s Energy Efficiency Awards.

FEES for council’s Citiplace Child Care Centre have risen. The full weekly fee is now $178, up from $168, the daily fee has risen to $37 from $35 and the sessional fee has gone up to $24 from $22.

SMALL businesses in the Stirling region are invited to register interest in the Stirling Small Business Awards.Prospective entrants have until 9 August to submit their entries.

TOO many companies falsely believe they are safe from computer hacking but it is a real and growing threat to business – and Australia is recognised as having some of the world’s most skilled hackers.

THE US took the lion’s share (15 per cent) of Australia’s service exports worth $3.9 billion in 1997-98, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics’ figures.

VANESSA Mazza has been granted a six month lease for one of the vacant shops beneath the Perth Town Hall for a monthly rent of just $90 per month.

EIGHT WA firms are being invited to take part in Corporation Builders’ Singapore program that introduces Australian firms to Singaporean investors.

OFFERING training over the Internet nearly won the West Coast College of TAFE an award in the education division of the recent Information Technology and Telecommunications Awards.