CLAIRE SUTTON:
I’m Claire Sutton, I’m the owner manager of Bellerive Quay Pharmacy. So we were flooded in January this year, and it's taken until October for the buildings to be refitted. Our pharmacy had to be gutted completely, so concrete floor and new plaster on the walls. Obviously, that’s caused considerable strain to me as a small business owner. And I have realised during that period of time how involved I am in my business. It’s sort of part of my personality, and that's put a rather large strain on my life, my relationships outside of work, as well as being able to continue serving the people of Bellerive and looking after our community.
As small business owners, we’re so involved in our business. Quite often we spend more of our waking hours at work than we do in our homes, and when there's some kind of interruption to your business that strikes home hard sometimes, and realising that your identity is somehow involved in your work and how you do things and not being able to do that, that’s left a bit of a gap. So services like Beyond Blue for small business owners are fabulous, in the sense that you can go there for support and receive that necessary support and continue [inaudible] what it takes when things are not how you expected them to be.
JOURNALIST:
What kind of services might have really helped you through that situation?
SUTTON:
Ah, well sometimes, particularly when you’re a small business owner on your own, just having someone to talk to and bounce some ideas off - particularly if someone understands business at all - that’s a really valuable thing to have. Obviously, we all have our families and our friends to lean on. But sometimes I just feel like I talk about the same thing all the time and maybe that's not something your family and friends are particularly interested in, and being able to have that extra support network to be able to talk to someone.
JOURNALIST:
The flood obviously came after a few tough years with the pandemic. Was it sort of a bit of a tipping point for you?
SUTTON:
So it was probably the busiest time in healthcare that we've ever had, during the pandemic. I was actually in the middle of a vaccination clinic when the water poured in the front door. I was still vaccinating people. I think I went into some kind of state of shock. But I was still trying to continue my job while there was this avalanche of water coming in the front door. But that just shows how we all are in healthcare - the show must go on. We’re just going to be here. Even with the numbers having decreased, we had to change our work style to be in two teams so if one team member became sick and they all had to quarantine we can still continue our business. That’s the kind of extreme measure that was taken by all pharmacies that I know about. So all of my colleagues have been working really hard during this time to make all of this happen. And then selling RAT tests there after, and the influx of people and we've always been available on that as a frontline service, for the community to be able to come in. Lots of other places, you know, ‘no, you can’t come in until we’ve checked you and done a test and make sure that it’s negative’. People were still coming into pharmacy, and we were still talking to them. Because that's what we do on a daily basis.
JOURNALIST:
And as someone that cares so much about helping others, was it difficult for you to put yourself first and seek help?
SUTTON:
Absolutely. So I probably didn’t do it enough [inaudible] and I would encourage anyone thinking of ringing in and having a chat to go ahead with that. I think that worked, made things not as devastating as they had been.
JULIE COLLINS:
I really want to thank Claire for being so brave to talk to us today about how it feels as a small business owner when you're impacted by things that you don’t plan. So that's why we in last week's budget continued the important NewAccess program with Beyond Blue, particularly tailored to small businesses. We're talking about $10 million for this program, so that small business owners right across the country who need that support can access it. We also have $4 million to continue the Small Business Debt Helpline. And again, I want to thank Sandra and Robyn for coming down here to Tasmania to talk about these programs and how important they are. They are both very specifically tailored to small and medium sized business owners. They have expertise and skills to be able to support small businesses.
These are just some of the measures that the federal government had in the federal budget last week in terms of supporting small businesses as we go forward. We know that small businesses recently here in Tasmania, in Victoria, in New South Wales have been impacted by more floods. And it's been a tough few years with the pandemic and natural disasters. So we know that small businesses are crying out for support, which is why these vital programmes are continuing and why we found the money to be able to continue these programs in the federal budget last week.
JOURNALIST:
Were the programs fully subscribed to the previous years that they had been running? Were they fully taken up?
COLLINS:
So I understand there’s about three and a half thousand people accessing the Small Business Debt Helpline, and around 2600 accessing the Beyond Blue NewAccess program. So what we want to do of course is to make sure that small business owners know about these programs, and that they're able to access them. We know that as businesses start to recover from the natural disasters and from the pandemic when we come out of it, there will be some significant issues, particularly with rising inflation and staff shortages. We know that small businesses have been incredibly resilient, but they are doing it though. They're also critical to our regions. They create over $400 billion to our economy each and every year. They're really critical to Australia's economy. I might hand over to Sandra.
JOURNALIST:
Can we just get your first and last name as well?
SANDRA BLAKE:
Sandra Blake. I'm a small business financial counsellor for the Small Business Debt Helpline, employed by Financial Counselling Australia.
JOURNALIST:
Did you have something you wanted to say, or should we start with questions?
BLAKE:
I can just talk to start with, if you like. We're sincerely grateful for the funding that's been announced and it comes at a crucial time for the small business community who've been weathering the perfect storm of debt, debt collection and debt challenges. During the COVID period, many of them obtained loans to stay afloat when their earning potential declined. And now, of course, they're having to repay those loans along with moratoriums they had from the ATO and their commercial landlords. Of course, they had to come to an end, and now they have. We're also seeing utility companies really ramping up on their collection activity, and some of that’s been quite aggressive. It all adds a lot of stress to the small business owners. And it comes at a time when they’re grappling also with staff shortages, supply issues - they’re having trouble getting their supplies - and it's still continuing with rain and floods. That's more natural disasters.
So reaching out for help is critical. Financial counselling is always free. It's always free. It's confidential, and you speak to somebody who is qualified. And we find that people when they speak to us, they feel that they can ask us perhaps what they might consider a dumb question that they're a bit afraid to ask their accountant or lawyer. So they ask us and we can explain the process of what does insolvency look like, what will it mean to you, what will bankruptcy involve. We can negotiate with the ATO a payment plan that is affordable and sustainable, that will keep them in their business. Or sometimes we have to talk about respectful exits - if it's time to close, how they can do that and walk away with their head held high.
JOURNALIST:
What are some common things that stop people from accessing this support?
BLAKE:
So quite often small business owners, they're resilient and they haven't been used to a free service for them. And so they're surprised to find us, and time and time again we hear from small business owners what that listening means to them. It's just so much, and they're very grateful for that. The sooner people come forward, the more options there are for them to find a pathway out of their debt.
JOURNALIST:
Name and title to start with, if you can.
ROBYN HUNTER:
Robyn Hunter, Chief Services Officer, Beyond Blue, I’d just really like to extend my thanks to Claire and the small business owners. They really are the backbone of our community, and they've been doing it incredibly tough. Through the pandemic, the natural disasters, inflation, and now the looming global recession. So it's really important that we recognise that they have been quite significantly impacted in their mental health and wellbeing. Beyond Blue has a very specialised mental health coaching program that's specifically tailored for small business owners, and since the program started in March last year, we have reached out and supported 2600 small business owners through this service. A recent evaluation has shown that 81 per cent reported an improvement in their mental health and wellbeing, and 85 per cent reported increased productivity and confidence to face challenges in the future. But most importantly, seven out of ten reported a reduction in their mental, in their anxiety and depression symptoms.
JOURNALIST:
Do you have the adequate resources to cope with increased demand for your services right now?
HUNTER:
The unique feature of these programs is that [inaudible] small business owners, and they actually really understand the day‑to‑day practical realities facing small business owners. We're able to extend the program [inaudible] and now with the two‑year extension in funding, we’re really well placed to support the program for another two years.
JOURNALIST:
And what's one word of advice you'd give to somebody who feels like they've become so consumed with their work that they’re at the point of burning out?
HUNTER:
It’s a free, readily accessible tele‑health program [inaudible].
COLLINS:
Other issues for me?
JOURNALIST:
Yeah, I mean, I might just. I mean, state Labor is out actually about housing today, talking to a constituent that has been living in their car because they've been stuck on the waiting list for housing for a very long period of time. Is the state government working to whittle down that waitlist? The least they could do to make your job easier.
COLLINS:
While obviously through the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement, we do provide support to every state and territory to provide homelessness services, and they are required to match that. That is a significant amount of money, nationwide $1.6 billion every year, through that National Housing and Homelessness Agreement. We are looking at having a national housing and homelessness plan to replace that Agreement. We will start, and have started, those discussions with states and territories. We've got another ministers meeting coming up before the end of the year to talk more about the national plan.
JOURNALIST:
Do you think the state government here is doing enough?
COLLINS:
I'd like to see every state and territory government lift, as the Commonwealth has lifted, and we’ve had very significant investments in the Federal Budget for housing right across the spectrum. Particularly with our Regional First Home Buyer Guarantee, helping regional Australians getting into their first home. Our Housing Australia Future Fund, 30,000 social and affordable homes in the first five years of that fund, a $10 billion fund. And then of course our Housing Accord, which is an agreement with all the states and territories to build another 10,000 affordable homes by the federal government, to be matched by states and territories with another 10,000.
JOURNALIST:
The state government here as well has recently started the new statutory authority, Homes Tasmania. How do you view that organisation, and do you think it is needed?
COLLINS:
We'll wait and see how that works in time. What we need to see of course is more homes on the ground more quickly, in every state and territory right across the country. Housing affordability is a really serious issue for so many Australians. There are too many Australians that don't have a safe, affordable place to call home, and we all need to lift together.
JOURNALIST:
And when you heard there would be another interest rate rise, did you spare a thought for all the Australians that may face further housing pressures as a result?
COLLINS:
Yeah, we know that the latest interest rate rise will make for some serious discussions around people’s kitchen tables. So we do really feel for all Australians who have mortgages going up, particularly those who bought at the peak of the housing market and are dealing with those increases. We need to get inflation under control, so that the Reserve Bank no longer needs to keep increasing interest rates. We do need to get inflation under control, and that's what last week’s federal budget was about. We are providing cost‑of‑living relief in ways that are not inflationary, such as cheaper child care, cheaper medicines, more affordable housing as we talked about. We’re going to try to get wages moving – we’ve got legislation in parliament – and of course our expanded paid parental leave.