Noel Dyson

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.

TRAINING to improve safety on offshore gas and oil rigs is crucial to the industry’s prosperity, says Employment and Training Minister Graham Kierath.

A PLAN to build a three storey office and apartment building at 1010 to 1018 Wellington Street in West Perth has been refused, despite an eleventh hour bid by Councillor Tess Stroud.

A PROGRAM designed to reduce car use and make better use of other means of transport has been introduced in South Perth. The TravelSmart program is a marketing campaign promoting the use of alternative transport.

THE contract to construct and primerseal 51.1 kilometres of the Mt Magnet to Sandstone Road has been awarded to BGC Contracting.

SINGAPORE, Australia’s largest Asian market, has set itself the goal of becoming Asia’s finance and information technology and telecommunications hub.

RETAIL industry employers have been praised for the way they are establishing career paths.

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.

Employers should regard stress as a work-related injury says Clayton workplace relations and employment partner John Lunny.

A PLAN to build a seven storey, six-apartment building at 60 Mount Street, West Perth has been approved by council, despite a negative recommendation from council staff.

CREATING tools that allow people to build websites anywhere at anytime has paid off for Perth company Harvest Road.The company recently won the commerce and business category in the inaugural WA Information Technology and Telecommun-ications awards.

MORE than 41,000 virtual tourists have visited the WA Tourism Commission’s new website from countries in-cluding Germany, Switzer-land and the US since its debut two months ago.

QUALITY assurance is a must, south west food producers are being told.The South West Development Corpor-ation undertook The Clean and Safe Foods Export Study with the Agriculture WA. The results of the study found that quality assurance was needed.

COST cutting is keeping Austra-lian and UK-listed mining giant Rio Tinto robust despite a strong downturn in commodity prices.

A NEW information kit has been launched outlining options and guidelines for employers wanting to establish family-friendly workplaces.

WA CAN learn much about building high tech and venture capital industries from the successes of Israel, says Israel consul – economic affairs Gil Erez.