Well, good evening, everyone. I’m really excited to be here this evening with you all. Please allow me to start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet – the Ngunnawal people – and extend my respect to any First Nations people joining us here tonight as well.
Welcome to Parliament House, and I’m really delighted that we have small business right here in the people’s house. And while parliament can feel a little bit removed from the communities which we are each here to represent, I take great pride in reminding everyone that small businesses are in every town and in every city right across this great country of ours.
I also want to acknowledge a few people who are here. So the Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino, who will also address you shortly, and the Shadow Minister Tim Wilson, who is also set to address you. I see our ASBFEO Bruce Billson here; wonderful to see you, Bruce. And welcome to all the small businesses here.
I have to say from the end of the corridor, when I saw Impact Comics, I literally left my staff behind and ran because I read in the report that Impact Comics sells comics that are crime and serial killers. And don’t judge me as a weirdo, but I really love crime and serial killers, so I was very excited to – not love, like, stories – okay, that went down well! Okay, really want to acknowledge everybody who’s here because you’re all special, but so many of my parliamentarian colleagues who are here as well today.
I want to thank COSBOA and Square for the opportunities to say a few words this evening to launch the state of small business report, which really does consolidate some of the things that we already know about small business and the adoption of technology. But also provides some really interesting insights into how small businesses are adopting technology and what that means for them as well. Really getting into that kind of nitty‑gritty.
Now, since taking on this role as the Minister for Small Business I’ve met many small businesses and their representatives across a range of sectors. Including manufacturing, hospitality, building, farming, retail, just to name a few. They are incredibly diverse – incredibly diverse – not just in their offerings across the sectors that they operate in but also in their structures, their turnovers and, indeed, in their own business goals as well.
But despite that diversity and despite the differences between small businesses, they all have one thing in common – and that is that small businesses, no matter how small they are, matter. They matter enormously for our economy and they matter enormously socially, a point that I see emphasised in the findings of the Small Business Data Report that we’re here to launch this evening.
The report’s headline figures show just how much small business is actually big business, right? Collectively, small businesses support more than 5 million jobs and contribute close to $600 billion to the economy each year.
Now, I’m a mother, a sister, a wife, a friend, a survivor, an academic, a politician, an avid crocheter, and an average cook. But maybe average is a bit of a stretch, but we’ll stick with average. But what you may not be aware of is that I’ve also been a small business owner. I think if I were to count the number of small businesses I’ve had in my lifetime I’ve probably run about 5 small businesses. And I wore that title proudly because there’s something incredibly uplifting about marching to the beat of your own drum. And I have to say it’s great when I see small businesses that have turned a passion, a love – whether it be of pottery, of comics, or photography, of ice‑cream – into a business.
Currently, as I mentioned, I’m an avid crocheter. I have my own label, but it’s not a business; I crochet for – to – raise money for domestic violence charities. One day, who knows, I may venture into that path again.
But despite it being such, you know, having a small business and running a small business being such a big step for people, particularly when you venture from turning something that you love into something that becomes your day job. There’s a huge weight that comes with it as well, huge weight that comes with being your own boss. You’re constantly doing sums in your head, you’re constantly thinking about what’s around the corner. And you’re constantly thinking about survival and sustainability, right? What’s next? What’s next in my journey?
Now, as an academic, I was a qualitative researcher. Not to pooh‑pooh quantitative data; quantitative data is great. But there is something about qualitative data that gives you a richness of information that you simply cannot get from quantitative data. Which is why I really appreciated the details and the richness that qualitative research brings to policy decisions. But also why I appreciated the qualitative data in this report and the important perspectives that that gives – the insights into the daily reality of small businesses, to comics, to pastries, to fluffy ice‑cream. I’m really disappointed that fluffy ice‑cream isn’t here by the way, but I’m going to find them and I’m going to have myself one of those fluffy ice‑creams one day.
The report also highlights some of the challenges facing small businesses such as increased costs and, of course, changing consumer behaviours, pointing to the fact that small businesses need to be resilient but also agile. Unsurprisingly, the report also shows that small businesses are ready – they’re ready to accelerate their role in our economy.
Now, our government knows that, and we know that with the right support, small businesses have the potential to be at the forefront of our national productivity gains. And that’s why we’re focused on easing pressures on small businesses, on supporting small businesses to grow, and on levelling the playing field for small businesses.
And we’re going about this in a variety of ways – attacking it from every different aspect that we possibly can. From providing energy bill relief to small businesses, improving transparency around payment times and investing in cybersecurity, digital skills and wellbeing programs specifically for small businesses.
The pace at which technology changes can often be quite scary and a daunting thing to face and the uncertainty that comes with that. And I feel like there is so much fear around artificial intelligence and how fast technology is advancing. But this year’s report underscores the resilience and the adaptability of small businesses in Australia. It shows how small businesses have integrated digital tools into their day‑to‑day operations, and we can even see that in operation here at Parliament House where indeed, I’m looking forward to buying some comics, some pottery and some beautiful photography that I see there at the back as well.
Eighty‑five per cent of small businesses use at least one digital tool. Almost 40 per cent have adopted some form of artificial intelligence, and digital payments have become the norm. As the report puts it, small businesses are not only adapting to change; they are actually shaping change.
Now, businesses are often best placed to lead the uptake of new technologies because you know – you know – your own business needs and you understand what solutions will work best for you. But a lack of know‑how can slow adoption and it can limit the benefits of innovation. And I think that’s really borne out in some of the findings of the report on page 14 where technical training and ongoing IT support were listed high among the things that small businesses said they needed in order to be able to adopt and continue adopting digital technologies.
And that’s why we’re focused on delivering targeted programs that support innovation but also remain grounded in the realities of business operations. AI is the next step in technological advancement. We want to continue fostering innovation so that small businesses can adopt it to their advantage. And that’s why we’re working to ensure that the policy settings are right, including for small businesses, so that the adoption of AI is both safe and sustainable.
An example of is one of the great programs that we fund through COSBOA – the cybersecurity training program and the Cyber Wardens program, which I had the pleasure of attending a session in the beautiful town of Fremantle in WA, and it’s great to see some of the people who were there here this evening as well.
Now, I encourage everyone here, if you haven’t already, to make the most of that program on offer in the cybersecurity support space as well as the programs that we offer through the digital solutions program for small business resilience. All of these initiatives are focused on strengthening small businesses for tomorrow, for the challenges and the opportunities that come with technology.
Now, one of the best parts of being the Minister for Small Business is meeting small businesses from across the country. Not only seeing their passion but also learning from their experiences, that qualitative data that I was talking about earlier. I’ve recently had the absolute privilege of hosting the first – the first few actually – of many, many more small business roundtables. And at each roundtable I ask participants to bring with them real and tangible ideas that they would like the government to prioritise in the context of small businesses and economic reform and our productivity agenda.
So I want to get feedback back some of the stuff that I’ve heard so far. And so far what I’ve heard is that we need to ensure that regulations are the right size for businesses, taking into account the diversity of small businesses as well. I’ve also heard that there is a significant need for systems to be streamlined across governments. That’s come across very loudly in the small business roundtables that I’ve held. And, importantly, that small businesses are eager to use productivity tools such as artificial intelligence, but they’re often not sure where to start.
These messages were fed into the Treasurer’s Economic Reform Roundtable that was held last week. And coming out of the roundtable, there were 10 clear reform directions – a number of immediate actions, and some further work areas to be undertaken along the track. But all of these were informed by and have small business at their heart and will help small businesses by, among other things, moving towards a national – a single national market, making AI a national priority and making regulations and the tax systems – system better and more streamlined.
We’re also working with state and territory governments to better support small businesses by improving the systems our small businesses operate within. And that work is being informed by Australia’s very first National Small Business Strategy. It was delivered by the Albanese government in our last term. As I mentioned, it’s the first of its kind and itself was informed by significant consultation with small businesses in all their diversity right across Australia.
Now, this term we’re continuing to build on that important work, and I’ve got to say, it is wonderful to be able to say that there are now 800,000 more new small businesses since when we first took office in 2022.
The principle that I come to this job with is to ensure that small businesses are represented in their diversity and are involved at the very start – the very inception of policy‑making and programming and of legislation. I want to ensure that the consideration of small business is built in, not bolted on. Not a semicolon and, not an afterthought, not a post‑it note, but actually built in – as one stakeholder put it to me recently – built in to how we do policy, how we think about business more generally.
It’s a challenge. It’s a challenge for policy‑makers and a challenge for legislators, but it’s a challenge that we must grasp and a challenge that we must overcome. Regulation – I’ve described it before – has become much like a layer cake, and not the kind of cake you want to eat. If we’re going to make change, we must always have an eye to how it impacts small businesses and to consider whether there are any inadvertent flow‑on effects to other policies as well.
Layered regulation from all levels of government is holding small businesses back. The layer cake – layer upon layer upon layer, as some – what was it? Who was the layer cake lady?
Speaker:
Sara Lee?
Anne Aly:
Yes. As Sara Lee used to put it. Layer after layer after layer has resulted in a cumbersome system of regulations that where one regulation or one measure is put into place to try and fix something but then creates more measures and more regulations in another space as well. I’m going to be working hard to change that, and I know that I’ll be doing that with each and every one of you alongside us as well.
So, I want to finish on the report, which paints a very real picture of what it’s like to run a small business today in an increasingly digital world. And as we look ahead to creating the right conditions so that small businesses can thrive into the future, this report and the ongoing work of COSBOA and Square will form an important part of how we do that.
The important qualitative and quantitative data in this report is going to play a vital part in shaping the policies and programs that impact on small business. And so I want to end by just saying a huge thank you and a congratulations to COSBOA and Square on this report, but also on the ongoing work that you’re doing with small businesses. And thank you for inviting me here this evening to help you launch it. Thank you.