Optus grants give Goulburn Valley companies a shot of technological expertise

By Murray Silby

Jun 8, 2023

**Grateful recipient:** Founder of event management company JL Productions & Hire Jamie Lea with furnishings the company hires out. The company is among five to receive grants that will help them review their technological needs and assets.

The Greater Shepparton Business Network, in partnership with Optus Business Centre Shepparton, has announced the successful recipients of the Optus Business technology grants.

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The grants are designed to help businesses grow and develop new ways of using technology for the benefit of their enterprises.

The successful businesses were Everyday Supplies, Freers Panel Works, JL Productions & Hire, Ted Cahill Motors and Wild Life Brewing Co.

JL Productions business manager Tenielle McKenzie said the specialist expertise from Optus that came with the grant would be a great boost for the event management company.

“For us as a small business, I think one of the biggest challenges we face is, unlike bigger companies, you are it. You have to be across everything,” she said.

“There’s a lot of pressure in small businesses to know a lot about everything.

“This support is amazing because we’re able to get that specialised advice.”

Same job, same pay campaign

The Goulburn Valley has a number of industries that make use of labour hire companies and may be impacted by industrial relations changes being proposed by the Federal Government.

The ‘Same Job, Same Pay’ industrial relations changes being proposed by the government aim to have labour hire workers, who do the same job at the same site, paid the same as directly employed workers.

The policy has attracted powerful opponents though, namely a coalition including heavyweights such as the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Business Council of Australia, the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia, the Minerals Council of Australia and National Farmers Federation.

The group claims employers will have to pay workers with little knowledge or experience exactly the same as workers with decades of knowledge and experience.

Federal Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke denies that though.

He said the changes would close a labour hire “loophole” where a rate of pay gets set at a workplace, but an employer can then evade those rates by using labour hire workers “to do the exact same job on the exact same shift, but being paid as casuals instead of permanent”.