Originally published in The Daily Telegraph

By Bruce Billson

This sector makes up 98 per cent of Australian businesses, so why is it under-represented at the upcoming economic roundtable? It cannot merely be an afterthought, writes Bruce Billson.

Only a few more sleeps until the much-anticipated Economic Reform Roundtable.

While I remain hopeful of a productive outcome, small and family business owners aren’t losing sleep wondering about what might happen at the three-day event.

Too many though, are losing sleep over concerns about when the post-COVID economic headwinds, challenges and constant disruption might turn into wind in their sails, opportunities and improved conditions for business success.

After years of survival-inspired and seemingly unending enforced resilience, adaptation and action to address market changes and margin-squeeze, maybe the Roundtable can provide new hope, encouragement and the promise of an operating environment more conducive to small business success.

Improving the operating environment of our economy must be the Roundtable’s core objective – lifting productivity, right-sizing regulation, encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship, and laying the foundations for future prosperity and a sustainable uplift in living standards, after a period of decline.

Small businesspeople live in this space everyday and play a crucial role in our economy, busily navigating a period of decline in operating conditions.

While still making up almost 98 per cent of Australian businesses and providing 2 in 5 private sector jobs and 1 in 3 dollars generated by our economy, but not as big as the share delivered by small businesses in previous decades.

As a nation, we continue to sleep-walk into a big corporate economy

Yet small businesses’ success continues to provide livelihoods, opportunities and community vitality.

In fact, they are ‘the economy’ in many of our suburbs, regions and rural and remote communities.

The voice of small business simply has to be prominent at the big table.

If a proportional presence based on employment share or economic contribution was the invitation metric, we’d see at least half a dozen strong and influential small business voices at the Roundtable.

Any discussion around easing the crippling regulatory burden, restoring incentives to take risks, investing and innovating, exploring how to best benefit from technology change or even a frank discussion about where our future entrepreneurs are going to come from, would warrant a supplementation of the small business representation.

There is no shortage of considered reform ideas and initiatives being proposed by the small business community.

It was pleasing to see so many small business champions, professional bodies, industry associations, and financial digital service providers contributing so willingly and constructively at the recent pre-Roundtable roundtable assembled by the energetic and engaged Minister for Small Business, the Hon Dr Anne Aly.

More must be done to ensure small businesses are bright on the Roundtable ‘radar’ with only a single mention throughout the three (3) papers intended to guide discussion.

This sole mention was acclaiming the reheating of the Instant Asset Write-Off measure for another year despite a chorus of calls for this initiative to be more generous and durable.

I hope that the dominant non-small business representatives at the Economic Roundtable have the experience and aspirations of business of all sizes ‘front of mind’ when thinking about economic reform opportunities.

With small business owners making decisions and weighing up choices every day, any focus on improving the economic climate and ‘energising enterprise’ more generally will be welcomed.

The key to success for enterprising men and women will be how well small business is ‘seen’, considered and consulted in the broader economic reform agenda.

Trade-offs between big business, government and unions in the name of consensus risk leaving small business to once again to fend for themselves, and make sense of and navigate changes that assume smaller enterprises are ‘shrink-wrapped’ versions of big corporates.

Specific consideration of small business needs, enablement and opportunities is necessary and can’t merely be an afterthought.

Assuming the small business experience aligns with broad, sweeping aggregated claims about what is happening in the general economy risks underappreciating the sector’s specific strengths, needs and challenges and its crucial role as the engine room driving growth, innovation and opportunity.

Productivity happens in the workplace and we should not overlook the fact that 93 per cent of employing businesses in Australia are small.

The extraordinarily and increasingly complex and prescriptive workplace relations regime has hardly been designed for this vast majority of workplaces.

It would be equally unwise to overlook how vital the 1.5 million independent contractors and self-employed people are to flexibility, skills distribution, economic adjustment and wealth-creation.

Seeking to ensure we provide the most supportive economic eco-system for these enterprising women and men to succeed has to be the guiding principle for reform.

Roundtable commitments to better enable productivity improvement and innovation at small business workplaces; a renewed focus on right-sized regulation; support for technological and digital deployment; implementing the right incentives for investment and capital deepening; recalibrating the risk-reward balance; ensuring a fairer competitive market; making it more attractive to employ and develop team members; improving access to justice for small business; and improving access to finance to fund growth; and making sure small businesses are at the decision-making table, are all in reach.

Let’s hope the Roundtable embraces these opportunities.

Commitments of this kind (and more) will demonstrate that small businesses are front of mind, ‘seen’, heard, understood and supported as key partners in Australia’s economic reform journey.