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Small businesses are being pushed to the wall by new regulations and a “laundry list of costs”, sector advocates have claimed, pointing to a raft of changes to industrial relations laws, awards, and privacy rules as evidence the Albanese government “doesn’t understand the essence of small business”.
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“Almost 43 per cent of small business are not breaking even and the majority of owners are working longer hours than average and paying themselves less than the average wage to protect their business,” Luke Achterstraat, CEO of the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia, said.
“Yet since 1 July government has imposed a range of further costs onto small business.”
Mr Achterstraat pointed to a long list of changes including a “ratcheting up” of pay across over 110 industry awards, increased superannuation guarantees, and removing the carve out in the Privacy Act that exempted small businesses from onerous data keeping requirements.
“External shocks may have driven up some costs (such as energy), but unfortunately the federal government is internalising the problem through more red tape and regulation,” he said.
Mr Achterstraat’s comments came as Minerals Council of Australia chief executive Tania Constable prepared to slam the government’s proposed “same job, same pay” amendments to the Fair Work laws at a Senate hearing Tuesday, saying they were “fundamentally flawed”.
Mining Conference. Minerals Council of Australia CEO Tania Constable in Brisbane addressing the World Mining Congress. Picture: Nigel Hallett
While the government has claimed that the reforms would only affect a relatively small number of contracted workers, business groups such as the MCA are campaigning against the new changes saying they would take flexibility out of the workplace at a time when productivity is dropping and harm Australians’ ability to earn money in the “gig” economy.
In prepared remarks seen by The Daily Telegraph, Ms Constable was expected to tell the Senate that the government’s changes would “(increase) the burden on business … put a handbrake on growth (and) pause expansion and innovation” at a time when the economy is at “a critical intersection”.
A crowd of workers and union representatives gathered in front of Townsville MP Phillip Thompson’s office to protest proposed changes to the IR laws.
“(The government’s changes) are not ‘modest’ or ‘housekeeping’ and do not apply to a limited number of businesses. they create a complex maze of obligations and new legal hurdles.”
Sandy Chong, who recently sold her hairdressing business after 39 years and is CEO of the Australian Hairdressing Council, said that industrial relations changes threatened to make life harder for small business owners.
NEWCASTLE, AUSTRALIA – NewsWire Photos – August 26, 2021. Sandy Chong, CEO and Board Director of the Australian Hairdressing Council, at her Newcastle salon Suki Hairdressing. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Peter Lorimer
“With this government, it’s a union government,” she said.
“They do not understand the essence of small business and family enterprises where people might be good at their trade but not so much at wearing the hats that have to do with industrial relations and human resources.
“In hairdressing, more than 70 per cent of operators are sole traders and they have to cope with having to deal with more entitlements for staff than anywhere else in the world.”
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