TRANSCRIPT

Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman Bruce Billson interview with Rick Hind.

ABC Radio Darwin

Subject: What is ASBFEO and what does it do? How small business can chase money they are owed, insolvency fears, resolving problems with digital platforms, the Personal Property Security Register

Rick Hind

A couple of weeks ago in the lead up to the 3G shutdown, we spoke to the ASBFEO, the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman. He's a bit of a live wire, but what does he do, apart from jumping up and down about how small businesses could be affected by the end of 3G…  But that's not why we've got Bruce Billson back on 105.7 ABC Radio Darwin this morning. Bruce. I haven't put your acronym to music, but I'm keen to hear what issues are raised with your office, which because we don't have an NT-based small business watchdog, that's you.

Bruce Billson

That's me. I'm the cheap version. I know you've only got me on because I'm incredibly cheap, but at least I'm here. It’s a happening thing in ASBFEO-land. We are here to be the best ally Northern Territory small and family businesses can have. 

We are a problem solver. So, we handle disputes and provide assistance to businesses that might have a bit of a beef with another business or with government. And that can take on a number of forms. Most common of those are people just wanting to be paid for the work that they've done. As the economy is a bit challenging, and, you know, the budgets are a bit tighter. It's nearly two in every five of the cases that businesses come to us looking for help with, involves just getting paid.

Rick Hind

It can be tricky to get people who you might have a long standing business relationship with, you've got to be able to work with them, to get them to pay you the money they owe you when you need it. How do you resolve that tension because you can't say, Look, we'll bring in the heavy hands, because we've still got to work with these people. 

Bruce Billson

That's the key thing. We try and get a resolution to whatever the dispute is, so that it doesn't feel like one party is the victor and the other’s the vanquished. What we do is actually get an outcome that both can live with, hopefully keep relationships intact, and get businesses back to business as quickly as we can. Because for most small businesses, going to court is just not an option. And for many of the areas that I operate in, that would be the Federal Court of Australia. Now, Rick, that's a quarter of a million bucks and two years to get a hearing. That's no solution at all. So, we get involved with a real problem-solving and mediation mindset, trying to get a resolution and keep those relationships intact. Because many times, people have to keep dealing with these parties, and you don't want one feeling like they've been run over the top by another. 

And frankly, not everyone's good at it. I mean, I loaned some tennis rackets to my mates, and I'm such a trusting dude, I don't even remember who I loaned them to, but they never came back. They were Boris Becker Puma tennis rackets. I loved those rackets, Rick. I though, my mate can borrow those for the weekend, and it just slipped my mind, and I couldn't keep track of who it was. Now, had I known who it was, having that conversation, hey, can I have them back? Or can you stop borrowing my mower? That's not always easy for people to do in everyday life. Just like in business, saying to someone, hey, would you mind paying for the work that I've done? Not everyone likes doing that. So what we do is we provide some tools through our website - that Amazonian foot fungus acronym of asbeo.gov.au - and it has some tools on there on steps you can take to remind people that they are owing you money. That you can even put a letter of demand in there, and how to escalate your own actions to try and get a resolution. We go for self-help first and then if it doesn't look like we can get an outcome, people can come to us. 

Rick Hind

You're listening to 105.7 ABC Radio Darwin. Rick Hind with you. The ASBFEO, the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman is Bruce Billson. Unsolicited advice is always appreciated, I know. Bruce Billson, when you're lending people at tennis racket, what you do is you get a photo of them with the lent item, and then when you want it back, you just send them the photo and say, remember this, can I have it back? 

Bruce Billson

This is why your program is so high rating in the Top End. That is practical life advice. Let's see if it carries on to the next bit, which is the second most prominent case or type of matter that people seek help from us with, and that involves digital platforms. So, you and I might be selling used tennis rackets on Facebook Marketplace, and then someone hacks our site and says, Bruce Billson’s second serve is a bit patchy and trash talks me and you on our website and locks us out of it. Well, that might be our only channel to our customers. This might be vital to our business survival, because in this age, and particularly in the Northern Territory where you're trying to reach more customers, often outside of Darwin who might be elsewhere in Australia or even the world, those digital platforms are a great way of opening up your potential market. 

But when they're shut down too often, these digital platforms say look at the frequently asked questions: I'm locked out of my own account, what should I do? And it's got really helpful advice Rick, nothing like your helpful advice, but helpful advice of you're locked out of your own account, please get into your account to tell us you're locked out of your account! Now you can imagine how that is unbelievably frustrating for people who just want to get back to business. And some of those mechanisms with these large, often internationally based digital platforms, are really hard to resolve. Yet, being able to use those platforms in your account on those platforms, could be central to your business, and that's where we would get involved and try and get about an outcome there. 

Rick Hind

I've heard there are a lot of scammers on Facebook Marketplace. Usually that's just for people just trying to make a bit of a quid on the side. But that leads to reputational damage for the platform, and therefore people don't trust it and might not trust your business. Now you do have, I know, a hotline to Facebook. How seriously are they taking this issue? 

Bruce Billson

Look, it waxes and wanes. They used to have help here in Australia, but when they restructured, some of our main contact points are now in Singapore. We work with wherever to get an outcome that is good for small business. So if it's a relatively straightforward thing, we can get a quick turnaround. If it's a little more complicated, that can add weeks and weeks and weeks to trying to get a resolution.

And then if that hacker has got into your Facebook account, and just imagine you and I were selling those tennis racket through our Facebook account and we had an ad spend that would see our messaging pushed out to athletes in Darwin and even the top end of Queensland, wherever we thought our customers would come from. That ad spend is paid for by, say, a credit card attached to our Facebook account, our Marketplace account. If they hack into our account and start pimping crypto or some really weird messaging that's really not good for our customer relationships, they might also mess with the attached payment facility that's there and spend our money pimping those very same things. And then we're financially disadvantaged, not just because we can't get hold of our customers and have that proper channel to our market, but they're also spending our money on scams and pointless promotions. That can also be really damaging for a business. And sadly, a lot don't come back from that because of the point you made Rick, the loss of confidence from customers. They might say these guys are peanuts, we're going somewhere else, and then we lose customers.

Rick Hind

Bruce Billson, you've raised an issue there about solvency, and I guess I have a question about the other side of unpaid debt argument, which is people who are just struggling to pay their bills to the people who they owe money to. Is there a role for you there on that side of the equation as well? 

Bruce Billson

We're finding with about half of the businesses that are contacting us about a payment dispute, sitting behind it is a deeper concern that they think the business that they're dealing with is at risk of insolvency. They might have learned through things like the Tax Office putting on what are called credit reference websites. So just say you and I are electrical contractors, there's a new subdivision in Palmerston, the developer has come to us and said can you go and wire this up for us? And we're thinking, Okay, we've got to lay out a lot of money for substations, all the cabling, the equipment, our time. I want to make sure that the developer is good for paying us, and then you can check on a credit reference site to make sure they’ve been paying their bills in a timely way. 

Now what's happened is the Tax Office is also putting on there, after a long process of trying to get people to engage with them, saying, hang on, they might owe Rick and Bruce's electrical company a bunch of dough, but they owe us a stack of money too. And so people can look at that and go, Hey, there is a bit of a risk that if we do things on trade credit, on terms like ‘pay us in 30 days’ we might not get paid. So that's coming up as an increasing concern. And we provide some advice about checking those credit reference sites. Even thinking about the terms. Using our example, we might say to the developer, you’ve to lay 50 per cent down before we start, because we want to at least cover the outgoings. And that's the way we're going to roll because we've got some influence over those terms and conditions. If there is that concern, we can take steps to mitigate the risk to us and not see someone else's solvency problems become a contagion for us, and then we're in strife.

Rick Hind

Now ASBFEO is lasered into my brain, Bruce Billson, but if you're trying to reach the ASBFEO office as a small business owner or a family enterprise owner, what's the best way to go about it? 

Bruce Billson

The best way is the website asbfeo.gov.au and that that can link you to a whole bunch of tools that are helpful because there's lots of good information around. It sometimes hard for time-poor small, family and indigenous businesses to find them when they need to. So, we try and bring together some really useful tools, but it also gives you those channels if there is a dispute and what steps you can take. And then if those steps you've taken yourself to sort out the matter don't get an outcome, then how best to come to us, and then we can be helpful. 

Rick Hind

Well, I'm trying to be helpful, Bruce, but Turk has texted in about my way of getting your tennis rackets back. Morning Rick, not sure about accounts, but a mate borrowed a ladder from me a few years back. He couldn't return it because his missus sold it in a garden sale.  It's tricky isn’t it.

Bruce Billson

Turk’s onto something there. That secondary opportunity. I mean, we could have a big discussion about the Personal Property Security Register where you can keep track of some of these assets, particularly if you and I are running a scaffolding business, and our stuff is everywhere around greater Darwin for building purposes, and then a builder goes bust, and the people who are owed money grab that scaffolding and sell it. And we go, hey, hey, that's Bruce and Rick’s what are you doing? So there's even mechanisms around that to protect your assets. Maybe you wouldn't do it for a household ladder, but an example of how to make sure your assets are protected. 

Rick Hind

Bruce Billson, great to talk to you. The ASBFEO, asbfeo.gov.au Bruce Billson thanks so much for coming back to us on 105.7 ABC Radio Darwin.