Business News - WA
At Close of Business podcast October 11 2024
(upbeat music) All the latest business news from WA, deliver daily. At close of business, news briefing. Good afternoon and welcome to the Outclothes of Business podcast. My name's Sam Jones, and I'll be reading your Friday headlines. Niche Living and its directors will be banned from operating for a decade, and the state government will contribute up to 40 million dollars to help finish the hundreds of incomplete homes. Commerce Minister Sue Ellery has announced that impacted customers of the embattled builder will be able to access the state government's underwritten insurance scheme and appoint new builders. The state government has waived Niche Living's insurance liability on advice recovery rates would be low, many its directors won't be pursued by insurance providers to cover the costs. It means taxpayer funds were used to underwrite to up to $200,000 in compensation per impacted customer. And given Niche Living has about 200 unfinished homes, that bill could be a total of up to 40 million dollars. Niche Living and its directors will be banned from operating or starting new registered building contractor businesses for at least 10 years. They will also be barred from accessing home indemnity insurance over their own homes, including that of their immediate family members. Niche Living has also dropped its fight to reinstate its registration, held under projects management and construction after the building services board refused it on financial grounds in July. It comes after it was revealed Niche Living signed four years worth of work in a two year period, prioritised more profitable builds and had debts totalling $76 million. And in resources, the federal court of Australia has published its reasons in upholding orders that allow for skewed to seize devices from its former employees in the ongoing dispute over the company's technology. Federal court judge, Bridget Markovich, last week rejected Element Zero's application to set aside search orders, but reserved the decision until today to ensure parties agreed on the confidential information to be redacted from the 94 page document. Andrew Forrest led Fortescue Future Industries sued Element Zero and its founders in federal court earlier this year, alleging they used information about green technology they'd gained during their time with Fortescue to set up Element Zero. The court granted search orders in May with Forrestescue's private investigator seizing devices and electronic data held by the directors from three premises. Forrestescue alleged the technology used to operate Element Zero's plan to process iron ore with minimal carbon emissions could only be achieved if the former employees used substantial amounts of information from Fortescue, including confidential data. And finally, the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia Council has appointed Mr. Susan Brown as president replacing Joe White. Ms. Brown has been on the REWA Council since 2015 and was deputy president from 2022. She serves on REWA's finance and risk committee and has represented the institute on the property industry advisory committee. At the age of 21, Ms. Brown was the youngest woman to obtain a real estate license in Western Australia. Ms. Brown is director at Alpha Cross Base Rent West Solutions, a property management agency having been with the company since 2006. That's all for today's headlines. You can read more at businessnews.com.au. Coming up on the podcast, Isabel Vieira and Justin Frust discuss the WA netball scene. (upbeat music) Celebrate business leaders, entrepreneurs and trailblazers with business news events. With our flagship event series bespoke online events, webinars, book launches and Gala Rewards programs, our forums showcase the policies and issues affecting Western Australia within industry and government. Our events are your platforms to engage and connect with the Western Australian business community. Visit businessnews.com.au/events for more information. (upbeat music) - Welcome back to the At Clothes of Business podcast. I'm Isabel Vieira and today I'm joined by Justin Frust. Justin, how you going? - I'm great, Isabel, great to see you as always and hello to all the listeners. - There you go. So Justin, in the latest edition of the Businesses magazine, you've written a great piece on Netball WA. They've got a lot going on, they're looking to expand, they've got some studies going on. Talk us through what's happening. - Yeah, so a really fascinating couple of months for Netball, Isabel. So basically Netball have come out with a strategic facilities plan between this year all the way through to 2034. And basically what the governing body was able to do, it's a state governing body, they've been able to go out, get data from all their associations. There's about 73 of them, those associations represent 900 odd clubs and they've been able to go and say, okay, what are some of the needs that our facilities, what do we need moving forward? And one of the key findings from it, there's 430 courts that are used regularly each week across the state, 398 of them need to be resurfaced in the next 10 years. And the other factor that was really interesting for me is 88.5% of all Netball facilities in WA are outdoor. And so it works out to be about 2,347 odd courts in WA. So Netball, WA have got that going on. And then on top of that, they've got a separate feasibility study for their main facility, which is the Gold Netball Center, that's on Selby Street in Jolimont. And that's where you've got the West Coast Fever, who obviously play in the national competition. They train there, you've got your state, West Australian Netball League, the eight clubs they play and train games there as well. So they're hopeful that they eventually can expand that to six courts because such is the squeeze and demand for Netball, it needs to happen because the last thing they want and of course the broader sporting community want is people not being able to play because of no facilities. - Yeah. And in the article, you've written that from a growth perspective, they've identified Peel and the Northwest as two key areas. Talk us through, you know what they're seeing there. - Yeah, yeah, definitely, well, the concerning thing for the Peel area is that they've actually had a 14% decline in the last year of people being able to play in it more because the facilities aren't where they need to be. And of course, Peel is a very important area, not just in terms of population, but it's also home of Peel Lightning, who are one of those West Australian Netball League clubs. So they play at the highest level. And in order for them to be competitive, they also have to have sport as very much as you know, like a pyramid. So you've got to have players at all levels working their way to the top. So it's important that they get that right. And of course, the Northwest as well, making sure that facilities are right to give regional players an opportunity to perform at their best. I know particularly in places like Albany and Denmark as well, the focus is more on indoor facilities rather than outdoor, because obviously, the weather can be unfavourable at certain times of the year, and they want to make sure that the players and officials are looked after. - There you go. And in this article, you've given a great snapshot of Netball WA's financials. What's their financial model look like? How do they run? - Yeah, so a great part of this has been able to get some insight from Simone Hanson. She's the CEO of Netball WA Group. That also includes the West Coast fever. And the biggest thing, I think, that readers and people can really understand is that Netball is very unlike a lot of other sports in the sense of, it's as Simone would class it as. It's a bottom-up model, which means they rely heavily on their members in terms of fees. You know, you might go and play Netball or your daughter or son might go play Netball. Those fees help Netball tick over. So they had a positive result last year. They made a surplus of $306,000. That was inflated somewhat. Their budgeted amount was around $88,000. They were fortunate to receive a grant from Netball Australia and a couple of state government-based grants. Both were able to come through the 2003-23, sorry, I should say, financial period. So that was able to make the result a little bit higher. But basically, they rely on sponsorship. People involve with that space. And because Netball's TV rights deal is very different to some of the male-dominated sports, such as Australian rules, rugby league, there's less money to go around, which means Netball has to work harder to ensure that it can flourish. So whether it's sponsorship activations, which is where their sponsorship services income comes from, or in-kind sponsorship, things like that, that really helps it flourish. So I was really, really fortunate and I learned a lot from being able to kind of open the hood and just see just how Netball runs. And I have a real appreciation for how Netball is overseen in WA. And I'm really hopeful that other people can have a look and just see all the good things that they are doing because it really is a good sport. Yeah, absolutely. And it looks like there's plenty happening there. Listeners, they can check out the full article in the latest edition of the Business News magazine or check it out online today at businessnews.com.au. Justin, thanks for your insights. Thanks, Isabel. The latest Business News, Deliver Daily. Subscribe and rate the show wherever you listen to your podcast. For all the latest Business News, visit businessnews.com.au. (upbeat music) You