Centre stage

Tony Abbott’s big pitch to small business has started, with his promises to create a special small business ombudsman and make the position of small business minister a Cabinet post.

Both are great ideas and should give the small business community much better representation within Government and the wider community. Indeed, why Small Business Minster Craig Emerson is not in Cabinet already is beyond us – this is a crucial part of the sector and really should be recognised as such.

And while Abbott’s pitch on extending unfair contract provisions to business–to-business contracts won’t be welcomed by all sections of the business community (franchisors are particularly unimpressed) as least he has ensured that the matter is again up for debate, after it was dropped at the last minute by Emerson last year.

It’s great to see small business near the top of the political agenda again, even if we are only in the “phony war” part of the election campaign.

But let’s hope that Abbott and Gillard still have plenty more to say on the SME sector, because there are plenty of other matters that need to be addressed.

For example, while it is great to see a focus on the small end of the SME sector, it’s crucial that both parties show they have policies to help fast-growing companies who need that extra bit of support to break into new markets and develop new products. Fresh and creative ideas around innovation and industry support are crucial.

And while we’ve heard plenty about tax reform for the big boys in the mining sector, it would be great to see movement around SME tax reform. For example, will one of the major parties be brave enough to tackle payroll tax, or at least commit to ways of tackling it? Surely one of the parties will seize the initiative.

And we need to hear much, much more on education and training. As we report today, the skills shortage is already here and already hurting, just months after the downturn ended (and for some sectors such as retail, it really hasn’t ended). This is a huge concern and we must see both parties come up with better policies to tackle the skills crisis.

It’s likely to be a long campaign with lots of issues, but SMEs must get the focus they deserve.