TV ads to promote local enterprise centre scheme

A series of six 30-second advertisements will begin appearing on regional television next week in an attempt to attract new recruits to one of the State Government's most successful job creation schemes.

The advertisements, broadcast free of charge by the Golden West Network, will feature eight people who have started up their own businesses with the help of a local enterprise centre.

They will include two young women from Esperance who are selling fashion lines to boutiques as far away as Darwin; a Narrogin couple who have started a new service in pre-packed fertiliser; and a Kalbarri man who has turned his love of abseiling into a paying adventure business.

"We know all around the State there are a lot more people just like them who have money-making ideas which could be quickly turned into commercial reality - if they had a little professional guidance," Deputy Premier Ian Taylor said today.

"That is where the enterprise centres come in.  They provide the expert help that can assist motivated people to start up companies - or expand existing ones - without the mistakes newcomers so often make."

Mr Taylor said experience had shown that a lot of unemployed people were using the scheme to capitalise on their ideas and get back into the workforce.

"Last year alone, 877 people found new work through businesses the centres helped to create or expand," he said.

"In fact, during those 12 months no less than 529 new companies were established through the centres."

Mr Taylor said a big factor in the success of the scheme had been the unique degree of co-operation that had been achieved with local councils and local business groups.

It was this partnership which had led to the establishment of no less than 22 centres around the State.

"The scheme could not exist without that partnership - nor without the extraordinary amount of time and effort that individuals from each community are giving to their local centres," the Deputy Premier said.

"There are more than 200 people from established businesses who have volunteered to sit on the various management boards which run the centres, and there are just as many people from local government who are putting in considerable effort to expand the scheme.

"What we are getting from all this effort is something that works - it is beginning to change the economies of towns around the State and turning good ideas into solid sources of new income."

Anyone wanting to find out the address of their nearest enterprise centre should call (008) 093340.