From Phill's Desk

Let's put things in perspective to start with. There are over 2 million small to medium sized businesses in Australia (so called big business only represents 1%) and about 5 million Australians work in them (about the same as work for big business), so in other words, 5 million voters have a direct interest in the policies your  government implements towards small business – let's just keep that in mind as we go on.

Second thing is that the small business sector is a bit of a myth. There is no such thing as 'small businesses', just people that work together in small groups, trying to make a living, look after their staff, make mortgage payments, have time to spend with their kids, take care of their customers, pay their suppliers (who are often small business people as well). In other words, small business owners do everything normal people do.  So don’t treat the sector as business (whatever that means), treat the sector as people; this will get you most of the way there.

What do small businesses want? Well you might think they hate red tape, at least, journalists and radio announcers seem to think this. In reality, small business isn’t anti-red tape — regulations are good, they create fairness and consistency in business dealings — it's just that when you create a new regulation for good reasons, such as regulations to reduce harm to the environment, it might be a good idea to also take a regulation away, such as the need to put a stamp on a document and charging us for the privilege of that. That way you keep the good rules and lose the onerous and everybody wins.

What else could you do? Now you are in the top job there are other things you could be thinking of, like access to finance to grow small businesses, supporting the creation of small business commissioners to address the power imbalance between big business and small, and ways to support  Australians who want to have a go themselves and create their own income. This last one is important, as there is a lot of evidence that says that net jobs growth in the economy comes from small business start-ups, not from corporate business expansion, but all the attention is paid to the large end of town.

So there you have it Brendan. If you can start banging the drum to your Cabinet colleagues to let them know that small businesses aren’t bad and deserve to be supported, that would be appreciated.  Remember, when you are discussing around the Cabinet table how you spend our money, it is all  created by the activity of business, and about 33% of GDP is being generated small firms.  So a little recognition to small business for the role we play, and a little more attention when it comes to supportive policy, would be a nice way to say thanks.

All the best in the new job!