Let us get on with things
AN ACCIDENTAL TOURIST TURNED ACCOUNTANT IS PASSIONATELY PUSHING CAIRNS TO REALISE ITS OWN IDENTITY IN THE COMMERCIAL WORLD WHILE CUTTING GOVERNMENT RED TAPE, WRITES ALICIA NALLY
Online trial expands
THE Coalition Government is giving more jobseekers the opportunity to look for work through online services by expanding the Online Employment Services Trial. Participants in the trial will increase by almost 40,000, expanding on the 10,000 jobseekers previously announced to take part from July 1 this year to June 30, 2020. Early results show that trial participants engage with service providers more quickly than job seekers starting with face-to-face services.
ABCC reshuffle
THE Australian Building and Construction Commission has two new deputy commissioners. Jill Jepson has been the chief operating officer and chief financial officer of the ABCC since 2017 and was previously head of corporate services and chief financial officer at Roy Morgan Research Limited. Matthew Kelleher is currently special counsel at Clayton Utz, and has previously worked as a lawyer and senior associate at the firm in building and construction law, including advising and acting for the ABCC. Ms Jepson commences on December 17 and Mr Kelleher on January 7, each for a five-year term.
Agriculture challenge
AUSTRALIAN agriculture’s five largest commodities face strengthening global competition which may impact the industry’s $100 billion 2030 target, suggests ANZ’s latest agriculture report, The Track Ahead. International competitors have improved their quality, volume and reliability, strengthening their overall market position across a range of commodities including cattle, horticulture, wheat, sheep and wool, and dairy which together represent about 68 per cent of Australia’s agricultural production value. The report also suggests Australian agricultural quality and low regulatory risk will lead to continued interest from global investors. LIKE many who discovered paradise and have never left, Darren Thamm wouldn’t trade the freedom and lifestyle he enjoys every day in Cairns for anything.
Part of the professional powerhouse quietly going about their work in offices dotted around the city, the partner of boutique accounting firm BRI Ferrier/Jessups loves the city he’s spent 26 years contributing to but would like to see its businesses celebrate their success more.
“I’m from the Adelaide Hills and on my 22nd birthday I left Adelaide with four mates on motorbikes to do the big adventure,” he recalled. “I should have actually died five times on that trip.
“I travelled to Cape York with three packets of two-minute noodles, a can of baked beans, four litres of water, a sheet, a mosquito net and a tarp. And three jocks, three socks and two shirts.
“We did the centre of Australia and then Cape York – we didn’t have a plan after that.
“I got to Cairns and my bike broke down and I’ve never been able to get out.
“That was in 1992 and Cairns was on the cusp of great
DARREN THAMM SAYS HE SPENT MOST OF HIS FORMATIVE YEARS WASHING DISHES AND SERVING BEERS IN PUBS BEFORE HEADING TO UNIVERSITY TO STUDY ACCOUNTING
things. There was a lot going on and there was a great vibe and this was a great place to be.
“I spent my formative years in pubs washing dishes, serving beers so when I got to Cairns that’s where I started work. All five of us got jobs within a week, I think the record was two days.”
But in his late 20s, with the realisation hospitality was a young man’s game, the now 48-year-old headed to the newly built James Cook University and studied accounting.
Fast forward over an almost 20-year career and Mr Thamm has split his time between directing the course of BRI Ferrier/Jessups, hiking and bike riding with his two children and accountant wife, volunteering time on the Cairns State High School P & C Association, lecturing at JCU and executing his position of treasurer at Cairns Chamber of Commerce.
While training up to 500 accountants through his job at JCU is Mr Thamm’s greatest achievement, it is the latter position in which he wants to help Cairns businesses broadcast their amazing achievements.
“The people who live here are definitely can-do people. They have passion. They have a strong drive when they’re all pulling together, like the Toyah campaign,” he said.
“But what passion means is they can splinter and everyone
is pulling in different directions because they’re not aligned.
“But in Cairns I find a lot of the people will give it a red hot go but their definition of success is significantly different to what it is in Melbourne or Sydney. In Sydney, success is having the big house and the big car.
“In Cairns, for some of the businesses, the definition of success is the ability to go fishing on Friday. That’s part of the charm.
“What people see as success in our rabid, capitalist society is not what Cairns people think success is. I think we need to
THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE FOR SMALL BUSINESSES IN CAIRNS IS GOVERNMENT STAYING OUT OF AREAS WHERE GOVERNMENT SHOULDN’T NEED TO BE INVOLVED DARREN THAMM
have a bit more confidence in what we can do here in Cairns.
“I’ve had people tell me they go to Brisbane to see an accountant because that’s where the best people are.
“You asked what my greatest achievement was and I hate answering that, but we need to change that mindset.”
So too, do Far North businesses need to look up and out.
“I worked in Toowoomba for a period of time and while they were still in the 1950s there they thought of themselves as businessmen and women of Australia first who just happened to be based in Toowoomba,” Mr Thamm said.
“The business boundaries did not stop at Dalby. We need to get out of the habit of thinking business stops at Innisfail.”
That way, Mr Thamm believes, the vision of a Northern Australia powerhouse will come true, with as little government intervention as possible.
“The biggest challenge for small businesses in Cairns is government staying out of areas where government shouldn’t need to be involved,” he said. “The government is not in the business of picking winners.
“If red tape was cut businesses could actually be businesses and not spend a lot of their time trying to follow the rules.”