ASE Group

Last week I met with Taj and the team at the ASE Group’s Australian schools of employment and entrepreneurship. Their mission is to equip every Australian with the skills, resources and mindset they need to start a business and enter the workforce, regardless of their postcode. I met Mo, who is actually from Woodridge, which is in both the state Treasurer’s and federal Treasurer’s electorates in South-East Queensland. He is running not just one business but two businesses. Firstly, he’s training to be a local barber, and his business is called LocalBlendz. Secondly, he has an apparel business called LoveLiveFashion. We went through one of ASE’s many successful employment programs with them, and Mo told me all about the opportunity that he received going through that program.

ASE received funding from the former coalition government to run their self-employment assistance program. In one year, participants of the program generated—wait for it—over $1.4 million in revenue. That’s entrepreneurialism at its best. We know that ASE does great work, and yet this government cut crucial funding for them that we promised in the last term of government. The government abolished the Entrepreneurship Facilitators Program, a low-cost program that has achieved so much success. Why? We know that this job-killing, short-sighted Labor government doesn’t like small business and doesn’t support the entrepreneurial spirit in this country, even in Woodridge.