Small businesses across Australia battling to survive
The Small Business Association of Australia (SBAA) is calling on the federal government to step up and provide more assistance to struggling entrepreneurs.
SBAA chief executive Anne Nalder told Today small business owners were doing it tough nationwide.
Anne Nalder says small businesses across the country are in trouble. Today
“Small businesses have been in a serious situation for many, many years now and it’s at this particular time, it is the worst period in decades,” she said.
“And the main driver is a lack of cash flow, that is the number one killer.
“Because unless you’ve got money in the bank, it doesn’t matter whether you’ve got invoices to be paid or contracts to be signed... unless you have got cash in the bank, that is a killer and that is borne by the ATO’s figures.”
She said aside from cash flow problems, a number of factors contributed to small businesses failing.
“It’s quite serious because if you have fixed costs and you don’t have the revenue coming in, you can’t pay your bills,” she said.
“There’s also delayed and late payments by big corporations, this one’s a very, very serious issue. It was costing the Australian economy around $7 billion before the pandemic and nothing much has changed since that time.”
Nalder called on the Federal Government to step, but said it could not be a “one cap fits all” approach.
“We must fix the core root of the problem and that is the way policy is designed and created for a small business,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter whether you’re a BHP or a small business owner that has two or three staff, the same rules apply and that just doesn’t work, so we’ve got to go for policy... that’s number one.”
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