In this video Ombudsman Bruce Billson discusses the role of our office.

Are you a small or family business owner in Australia, experiencing a dispute with another business or government agency? We're here to help. See our Assistance page.

Transcript

Hi, my name's Bruce Billson and I'm the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman.

I'm following in big footsteps from Kate Carnell who was the Inaugural Small Business Ombudsman. A position created under legislation in 2015. Kate was in the office for five years and has provided a fantastic foundation. A foundation to help us be the best allies small businesses could hope for.

Working with my dedicated team, we are here to support the small businesses and family enterprises of Australia. It's not our gift to ensure that all businesses are successful, but it is our task to make sure that there are headwinds or obstacles that are impeding your prospects for success that we play an active role in addressing those.

We do that in a couple of ways. We can assist with dispute resolution, a conscientious for where businesses have a matter that needs to be resolved done through dispute resolution, so that those businesses can get back to business.

We're also an advocate, an advocate for the challenges that small businesses and family enterprises are facing. In the action that would be helpful in supporting your success.

We're also there to work with other areas of government and other levels of government, where policies are being developed or programs are being conceived, with the intention of supporting small business and family enterprises. We can bring insights, expertise, even the right people into that policy formulation process, to make sure those government initiatives are designed and are appropriate for your needs.

We're also here to provide some help at challenging times. On My Business Health website, there's some tools there that will help you with that challenge, but incredibly helpful and worthwhile enterprise, of you running a business and creating opportunities for yourself and others.

Sometimes that can be a really heavy burden. So, we've even got some tips on making sure that your emotional wellbeing and mental health, is as strong as it can be, so that you can continue the important work as business leaders in our country.

Thank you for what you're doing and if we can help in some way, please don't hesitate to reach out.

End