The final White Paper will be presented to the Australian Government in December 2014, and the first stop in its creation was the IPA’s summit at Canberra’s Parliament House in June.
The Canberra summit tapped the insights of key industry and regulatory leaders to gain further insights, with presentations from Small Business Minister Bruce Billson and Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Small Business Bernie Ripoll.
Local summits have taken place at other sites, including Frankston in Victoria, Bunbury in Western Australia and Darwin in the Northern Territory, providing further input and support for the cause.
This work aims to provide not just a policy paper but also a platform for ongoing discourse and a new voice for small business, backed by rigorous research, practitioner insights and industry views.
Small business growth is rapidly becoming more important as a driver of Australia’s productivity, as was highlighted in the recent Treasury publication Australia’s Productivity Challenge. As such, Australia needs to recalibrate the policies that affect the small and medium business sector.
As the most trusted advisers to small business, we believe Australia’s public accountants are among the best placed to articulate, in a mature and robust way, the various issues facing the sector and the most effective ways to foster its growth.
The working draft
The draft White Paper covers six key areas and focuses on outcomes, with the macro objective of Australia becoming a global small business hub. The outcomes are:
1 A simplified and targeted small business tax system that supports small business growth.
2 Appropriate regulation of Australia’s small businesses, providing a safety net without stifling entrepreneurship.
3 Competition policy that supports and promotes small business by creating a level playing field.
4 Adequate and affordable access to responsible finance for small business.
5 Promoting productivity through innovation and use of technology (such as Standard Business Reporting).
6 Links to our regional trading partners being facilitated to open export markets for small business.
