It is an exciting and busy time for the tourism and hospitality sectors, with the Australian Open in full swing and many domestic and international holidaymakers enjoying visiting our wonderful state.

To make sure that Victoria keeps its reputation as a great place to live and do business, the Victorian Chamber today releases its pre-budget submission.

Our top priorities have been developed to advocate for Victorian businesses, to enable them to operate in a business-friendly environment that promotes innovation and growth.

One of our key recommendations is for Victorian agribusiness to be the next priority in the State Government’s small business regulation review. Victoria is known to be a producer of high quality food and fibre and our state’s agribusiness producers have indicated that costly and unnecessary red tape needs to be addressed if we are to enable them to be more competitive at home and abroad.

We must improve the regulatory process for agribusiness producers so it is not as complex and inconsistent as it currently is, across all three levels of government. If regulation is simpler and easier to navigate, our state will benefit from more innovation and business startups, and lift our reputation as a premium agribusiness producer.

We are delighted that one of our longstanding recommendations, the North East Link, has already been committed to prior to the budget being handed down.

Our other recommendations include:

• Increase the payroll tax threshold to $850,000 by 1 July 2018
• Allocate $25 million to extend Back to Work to small businesses with turnover of less than $2 million
• Create a $5 million Export Insights program to help new exporters engage with international markets
• Allocate $23 million a year to support Visit Victoria in regional, domestic and international marketing activities.

We will advocate for these recommendations and continue to inform our members from now until the State Budget on 2 May 2017.

Mark Stone AM