United We Stand Covid19

21 Mar United We Stand Covid19

Dear Here to Help,

I run a small business and we have been struggling since Sunday 15 March. Where can we access help?

There are a number of things you can do to access help:

1.             Talk to your bank. The banks are doing a great job helping people through financial issues linked to current events.

2.             Talk to your accountant or financial adviser.

3.             Join your industry association. An industry association is a bit like a union for business. Industry associations take your issues to government on your behalf. The more members they have, the bigger their voice.

4.             Encourage your industry association to join COSBOA. COSBOA is the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia. It does a fabulous job of advocating for small business with government. Right now, it is negotiating small business assistance packages with all Australian governments.

5.             Improve your business hygiene. The current government advice can be found here.

6.             Put up signs (paper and on your internet pages) so your customers know what you are doing to help keep them, and your employees, safe. Your industry association may be able to provide template signs for you to use.

7.             Be creative – there are many other avenues of assistance.

Getting legislation right is complex. A lot of the work around legislation design centres on correctly defining the “line” – who will qualify and who won’t. We can all think of examples of where this line wasn’t right – the recent fire stimulus package (too much focus on anti-avoidance) and pink batts (not enough focus on safety).

That is where experienced policy and advocacy professionals come into play. We understand how hard it is to define the “line” correctly. We know how vital it is that the “line” is drawn in the right place. And we know that government values our clients’ industry expertise. We work closely with government to help them balance community, business and fiscal interests and create legislation that works well for Australia as a whole.

Every industry association should have access to high quality policy and advocacy professionals, either through full-time employee(s), or consultant(s). COSBOA is led by Peter Strong, in my opinion one of Australia’s leading policy and advocacy professionals.

One of the best things you can do for your small business right now is join, talk to, and support, your industry association to work with government to correctly target the stimulus package.

This article comes from my column entitled “Here to Help” in Hunter Local, April 2020. If you have an everyday problem just begging for a simple, real world solution, send it to us and let’s see what we can achieve.

Photo by Mike Scheid on Unsplash

Elaine Abery has a closet full of great ideas and empowering solutions. She’s also the Director of Unravelling Red Tape, a company dedicated to helping everyday people, not-for-profits and companies change the world through improved decision-making and legislation.