Opinion: Anthony Albanese not as good for small business as Julia Gillard

The National Small Business Summit held this week by my old association, COSBOA, was a who’s who of regulators and movers and shakers in the small business world. The topics were worthy and well worth reporting. Well done, COSBOA.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was there, as was Peter Dutton as leader of the opposition. Albanese claimed the mantle for Labor as “the party of small business.”

Have no doubts, Labor is not the party of small business.

As I considered his comments against my experience with previous governments and leaders, I found a comparison between Albanese and John Howard. Both of them have the rhetoric, they dogmatically and emotionally admire and support small business, and they have the statistics and the words to prove it. 

Yet in both cases, they did not, in reality, support small business. 

Howard supported big businesses, particularly Coles and Woolworths, but also big banks, mines and transport companies. He was a champion of laissez-faire economics that benefits those with money and muscle – rarely a small business. Albanese says lots of words that sound nice but all his resolve is for the unions. He also favours those with money and muscle.

The best government and prime minister for small business during my time as an advocate was Julia Gillard. 

Gillard brought in many changes in industrial relations that made the system less complicated. There was also the introduction of an instant tax write-off process that was expanded by the following Coalition governments. Importantly, Gillard’s government made regulators more responsive to the needs of their small business stakeholders through the regulator performance framework. 

Gillard understood that a small business was a person. A person who votes and isn’t enticed, nor fooled, by mere words. These small business people respond to real life and to the impact, on a day-to-day basis, of government policy and actions on their business, on their employees and on their families. Small business people are connected daily to their local economy – if they are not efficient and on the ball then they will lose customers and they will close. There is no joy in closing a business but when it closes due to poor government policy and regulations then the pain is worse.

What Albanese misses is the effect on the mental health of the small business person. Instead, he was big on statistics – rattling off all sorts of figures that supported his policies and his standing as a great small business devotee and a great leader for the small business sector. 

Hang on – what about those business sectors where over 30% of the self-employed have diagnosed mental health issues, as reported by the federal Treasury?

During the COSBOA summit, the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman Bruce Billson and the state small business commissioners, particularly Chris Lamont from NSW, expressed deep concern for the mental health of the people who run businesses. This comes not only from the increased complexity from the Albanese government but also from the leftover effects of the COVID years – COVID is still affecting those who carry our economy and are the backbone of our communities. So why is Albanese making it worse and then claiming to be their champion?

I’ve always said that the term “small business” is used by economists and statisticians to describe an economic unit. A small business is a person first and foremost. They come from many different business sectors who very often communicate differently, have different levels of importance placed on different behaviours and regulations, and they deal directly with consumers. They are not remote from the community or sitting on boards. Or one of the few people who are members of political parties.

The Albanese government is there for the unions. Otherwise, they would care for the health of the self-employed. They don’t. They actually know they are making it worse. 

When an individual employer has mental issues, employees will become concerned and may develop their own problems.

Is it true, perhaps, that Albanese cares nought for the small employer as their employees are very unlikely to be members of his beloved unions? Unions that have the lowest level of membership ever? Unions that very few people trust?

Prime Minister, if you want to be the leader of the party of small business then make business life simpler for the small business person. 

You, for example, can make workplace relations so much easier. But, it appears that keeping Tony Burke and the wealthiest unions happy is much, much more important than removing the causes of health failures for over two million Australians – who between them employ and provide for over 4.5 million other Australians and their families.

Bring back Julia Gillard.

Peter Strong is the former chief executive of the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia.