New business support funding receives a 7 out of 10 scorecard

Steve Price

Bill Lang, is the Executive Director of Small Business Australia, he’s been kind enough to join us again. Thanks for your time.

Bill Lang 

Morning Steve.

Steve Price 

What did you make of the Morrison package announced yesterday?

Bill Lang 

Well, it’s, it’s very good news. And, you know, after many, many months of a lot of activity from many of your listeners, signing our petition, and making it clear that there were significant gaps, lots of holes, a lot of small businesses not being supported, we’re finally seeing a bit of a Team Australia approach in terms of the 50/50. Ensuring that, you know, a bunch of smaller business can get access to some cover, there’s some other things happening at state levels around some rent relief, and support for some of the commercial landlords. So Well, look, I think we give it a 7 out of 10, Steve. There’s still more to be done, but very, very positive moves and very welcomed by the majority of small business owners.

Steve Price 

Melbourne is now you know, out of lockdown, in a sense, I mean, you’re still kind of people visit your home. But do you get any sense before we turn our attention to what the disaster that’s unfolding in Sydney, do you get any sense Bill that the Melbourne economy will and small business will rebound quickly? Or is this rebound going to be slower than last time?

Bill Lang 

Steve, I think it’s important for everyone to recall that, you know, Melbourne and Victoria has had more than 180 days over the last year or so in terms of lockdown. So it’s actually the cumulative effect of these things that have an impact on the citizens confidence, the willingness of small business owners to go forward, we’re actually in lockdown 5.5, in Victoria, that’s the reality because many businesses still have significant restrictions upon what they’re able to do. And we still have certain businesses are able to be open, for example, you know, legal brothels can operate. Yet people can’t get together and meet with their family in their home. So there’s still a whole bunch of inconsistency. And there’s still quite a bit of pessimism around and the other thing, of course, is, yesterday, the Prime Minister has finally said it’s Christmas, right? So Christmas is going to be the time, which means between now and Christmas, and that, what I mean by the time that the you know the maximum or the minimum full vaccination rate will be required. And he said, there’ll be no more lock downs, from Christmas onwards. That means we’ve got four more months Steve, we’ve already had five in Melbourne, Victoria, where 5.5 now effectively. So most of small business owners that have really suffered during the last 12 months are going, ‘Do I open back up again right now?’ you know what will happen here in Melbourne and Victoria, for example, in the next couple of weeks. So there’s an expectation that we’re going to continue to see these and the Prime Minister admitted it yesterday, all the way through to Christmas, based on whatever the premiers decide they want to do.

Steve Price 

You can either look at that Christmas reference, optimistically or pessimistically, I must say, I got pessimistic about it. When I thought really Christmas, it’s only the end of July. And we’re really going to be going through this for another four and a half months. I mean, how can you plan and do a budget and work out what your staff numbers are going to be and what stocks going to be if you have got no certainty over the back half of this year?

Bill Lang 

Well you can’t Steve, right? So the only people that can play with any certainty are people on sort of full salaries, sitting in a very secure with jobs in the public service or politicians federal until at least the next federal election. And people that are maybe working for some large corporations that are in a very secure position. Another major gap from the announcement sort of yesterday’s, there are a number of small businesses that have people as full time employees or sort of part time employees. And there are significant issues under the Fair Work Australia act with respect to being able to reduce their hours. So the business owners are still having to pay those wages and salaries, and not actually getting enough money back. Now the prime minister said yesterday about JobKeeper and not bringing JobKeeper 3 back because the new ones better. He said, You know what, you don’t play this year’s Grand Final based on the way you played last year’s Grand Final right. In terms of winning a Premiership but I look at, you know, the the Tigers and the Storm, couple of sporting teams from Victoria, their game plan has been pretty good, you know, three or four in the last five grand finals. So what we’ve got now is effectively a JobKeeper point 3.0 to some degree, but there’s still issues around the Fair Work Act. And of course, the unions are still jumping up and down about you know, all of this sort of stuff. But the small business families are the ones paying directly out of their own pocket to the extent there’s any money left in it, to actually be able to support those employees. So we’ve still got some gaps, there’s more to be done.

Steve Price 

Yeah I heard an example of a large hotel chain where their normal weekly payroll bills about $85,000. And clearly they’re not operating, they’re in shutdown mode. And they can’t in Victoria even open again properly, because of the four, one person per four square metre rule. They’re still paying out half of that payroll to their workers, because they have to ensure that they’ve got some workers who’s still on the books when they reopen again.

Bill Lang 

Look that’s exactly right. And there’s a couple of other interesting things, they’re also still paying workers compensation premiums or WorkCover premiums. They’re also paying payroll tax. Yet these people actually aren’t working because they’re not allowed to have them working because they can’t have enough customers to come into the business. So, as I said, there’s still gaps there. A lot of catching up going on in terms of the public servants actually understanding how businesses work. But it’s been great, particularly your listeners, Steve, and your support for our petition at www.SOSBiz.com.au because we’ve had 1000s and 1000s of Australian citizens say yes, small business families should be saved, more needs to be done. And at least we’re seeing some more positive things happen in the last couple of days. But there’s still some gaps for the guys to catch up and fill.

Steve Price 

And those border closures are the other killer. They keep stopping people from moving around and anyone running a small business, it’s anywhere impacted by tourism, it must be doing an extremely tough and then you’ve got this decision made by the the Andrews government to scrap that border barrier, and that the you know, the barriers between Southern New South Wales and Northern Victoria means people can’t move across the river.

Bill Lang

Look it’s been now for 18 months along the Murray River in particular has been one of the hardest hit areas in terms of whatever New South Wales has done, or Victoria has done or the federal government’s done. There has been billions of economic value taken out of that area. Look, and we use the word tough a lot or the politicians use this word tough a lot. You know, just imagine how tough is it if you’ve actually lost everything in terms of building up your travel agency business, your tourism business, you’ve taken out your superannuation, you’ve sold your house, more than 100,000 houses have been sold by small business owners. That’s more than doing a tough Steve. There’s a whole bunch of these businesses, they’re now gone. Now these are very resilient people, and they’ll get themselves going again, but again, they have paid the greatest price or far greater price than anyone elses paid with respect to, you know, being making their contribution to the management of the pandemic, well and truly over and above any other Australian.

Steve Price 

And the politicians have had a pay rise in the middle of it. I mean, that just beggars belief.

Bill Lang

Those things won’t be won’t be forgotten. Steve, I’m sure in elections around the land, you would have thought that we’re all in it together if you had a guaranteed incomes actually having a reduction in terms of what you’re getting paid because you’ve got the security and the certainty of your job. Maybe we need to see a you know, a surcharge in terms of income tax on those people or people whose assets portfolios have grown thanks to low interest rates. There’s a lot to be done, Steve, a lot to be done.

Steve Price 

Always a pleasure to catch up. Thanks a lot.

Bill Lang 

Appreciate it Steve.

Steve Price

Bill Lang, the executive director Small Business Australia.