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At last a good news story - 

Via the Oz: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/busines...c72520aa58

Brumby Aircraft helping win the race to surplus

Paul Goard and his father Phil with one of their aircraft in Cowra, NSW, yesterday. Picture: Graham Schumann

• SAM BUCKINGHAM-JONES
  JOURNALIST
  
  
• 11:00PM NOVEMBER 28, 2018
  

In a small hangar at the airport at Cowra in southern NSW sits one of Australia’s great small-business success stories, Brumby Aircraft.

The company has taken off in the past few years, signing a massive deal with a Chinese aviation corporation and going from a few planes designed and built in a shed to a $20 million factory in the industrial city of Fuping.

“Everything we did we’ve done ourselves,” said co-owner and co-founder Phil Goard, a 70-year-old aviation veteran. “It’s been a hard struggle, paying wages, getting as much done as we can.”

Brumby Australia is one of many small to medium-sized businesses working quietly behind the scenes, benefiting from an increasingly global Australian economy that is due to return the federal budget to surplus next year.

Scott Morrison announced on Tuesday that he would deliver a surplus in a fast-tracked federal budget on April 2, ahead of a May election. Treasury had forecast a $14.5 billion deficit for the current financial year, and a $2.2bn surplus next year.

“If you can get unemployment down to 5 per cent, you have the double barrel of lower welfare payments and higher payroll and ­income tax,” said Stephen Cartwright, chief executive of the NSW Business Chamber. “You have the two things operating favourably, you get a double lift.”

Mr Goard and son Paul built their first plane in the early 2000s as an experiment. It was effectively built off a napkin design after years of running a parts repair business at Bankstown in Sydney.

“I basically built the thing from my experience,” Mr Goard said. “I took it to the airshow at Wagga (in southern NSW) and got 10 orders.”

Four years ago, they ­approached the business chamber and were ultimately connected to the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, which makes everything from fighter jets to missiles but has recently moved into commercial and general aviation.

The joint venture meant the Goards brought their intellectual property, and AVIC brought the capital, staff and a factory.

The move is beginning to pay off. Mr Cartwright said trade deals with foreign powers had helped foster an environment that had helped businesses such as Brumby Aircraft.

“What it shows very clearly is Australia is an integral part of the global economy,” he said.

“This is a company that has historically focused on the Australian market.

“Suddenly they’ve found themselves exposed to a global marketplace, collaborating, creating a whole new market.”

MTF...P2