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Hi ,
Last week I attended the National Small Business Summit in Sydney. It was a big event, particularly in this election year. The politicians were debating the issues that matter to small business owners. Here is a summary of some key messages to give you the flavour of the event.
Prime Minister Rt Honourable John Howard:
There has been a fall of 26% in the long term unemployment figure, due mainly to the confidence of small business owners to take on staff with the new industrial relations laws.
Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd MP:
The barriers to small business dealing with government are too high with government overstating its risks for low value contracts. He proposes an audit of tendering procedures to identify and remove these barriers.
Chairman ACCC Graeme Samuel:
The ACCC has provided simplified collective bargaining provisions for SME’s to use with large suppliers of services. For example, lease owners being able to negotiate with Shopping Centre Owners and retailers working together to negotiate with large suppliers. But no one to date, has used these provisions. He also referred to the Productivity Commission’s investigation into unfair practices in commercial property leases and encouraged all to provide submissions to the commission.
Commissioner ATO Michael D’Ascenzo:
New arrangements are in the pipeline to simplify reporting to the tax office.
The Great Debate: The Hon. Fran Bailey MP, Minister for Small Business and Tourism vs
Dr Craig Emerson MP, Shadow Minister for the Service Economy
The Minister spoke about the Building Entrepreneurship in Small Business Program for young business owners, and of course the threat to small business from the unions if the government loses office.
The Shadow Minister emphasised simplified dispute resolution for independent contractors, and made the statement that unions were not interested in trying to get into small businesses because it is not worth the effort for them.
Chairman Independent Contractors Association Michael Kelson:
Raised the importance of engaging people with arrangements based on results. He stated that agreements should be based on common law not on IR law. He was also concerned that proposed changes to the Work Choices law by the Opposition could turn contractors into defacto-employees and subject to collective bargaining.
GM Personal Systems Group, Hewlett Packard Group Tony Bill:
Discussed the link between environmentally sustainable business practices and cost reduction and increase in efficiency.
Other key items of discussion included the large rises in retail tenancy costs and the non-transparency in commercial property leasing.
There was also commentary from someone who I won’t name, that every politician he has met claims to have been a small business owner, and therefore really understood the issues for small business owners. But he then went on to say, running a one man consultancy selling their own services to government is not a business and therefore they did not know what they were talking about. There were a number of politicians at the conference who fell into this category, but again I won’t name names.
If you want to find out more, please contact me. And watch out for next year’s event. While it will be after the election, I am sure there will be plenty of people to meet and things to debate.
Kind regards,
Greg Chapman
Australia's Leading Advisor to Emerging Businesses
www.GregChapman.biz
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