Billson packs licence to kill off any impediments to small business

JOHN DURIE
January 09, 2014
The Australian
THE way Bruce Billson sees it, he has a “hunting licence to go where I need to go to give more support and encouragement to the enterprise ecosystem”.
The federal Small Business Minister has a team of 79 people out of the 900 or so in Treasury, with 15 in the tax division and 64 in the markets division.
Included in his tasks is oversight of the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission and the soon-to-be unveiled review of competition policy.
The draft terms of reference for the review released last month are extraordinarily wide, but Billson said this was intentional and the final document would be much the same when it was released by month’s end, along with the name of the so-called eminent businessperson who will chair the review.
“We want people to take part in the process which will look to the choke points in the economy, looking at the law as it stands with the aim of improving competition,” he said yesterday.
ACCC boss Rod Sims, a key player in the creation of the Hilmer review back in 1992, is selling the reform as Hilmer Mark II, a description that Billson supports, although many outside are sceptical given the scale of the project.
Hilmer had 10 months and tightly focused terms of reference, the last legislative review by former High Court judge Daryl Dawson back in 2003 had seven months, and the more recent simplification program of the US Anti-trust law took three years to complete.
In short, expectations should be modified in terms of immediate results, even if Billson maintains “it will be an important piece of microeconomic reform”.
Instead, the review is likely to point out the directions that need to be followed.
The review will have a secretariat of 12 people based in Treasury and will be backed by a reference group comprising interested parties with different stakeholders to provide support.
The latter is an obvious attempt to channel the noise and Billson will seek input from the Productivity Commission and others.
The aim is to complete the review by the end of the calendar year and start with an issues paper, a draft report in September and final report in December.
Late this month, Tony Shepherd’s Commission of Audit is due to hand to the government its first report looking at big spending items and how government can work better to produce sustainable surpluses by the year 2023-24.
The second report, due by the end of March, will take a more in-depth view.
Cutting government can help productivity and, while some overlap will exist, the Billson review is more economy-wide than the Shepherd audit, which focuses on the federal government.
As an aside amid the myriad reviews, PC chair Peter Harris flagged in last year’s annual report that he planned to complete at least one major research report each year along the lines of last November’s “An Ageing Australia: Preparing for the Future”.
He noted that “with a slowing of national income growth as the terms of trade declines, productivity growth becomes again the paramount source of sustainable growth”.
That is what Billson wants to improve, but with a clear intent to ensure that small business be allowed to lead the charge by being given the same access to services as big business.
Late last month, Australian Securities & Investments Commission boss Greg Medcraft took Billson on a tour of the corporate cop’s service centre at Traralgon in Victoria that serves as a key point of contact for small businesspeople.
Next month he will have his first formal meeting with state governments to launch his promised Small Business ombudsman, which will act as one-stop shop to help small business gain access to the best support, fight the case against government on specific issues where necessary, help in cutting red tape and mediate disputes with government.
A discussion paper will be circulated around the states in the next couple of weeks.
Billson is also not waiting for the competition review for some promised reforms, such as extending unfair contract law from consumers to business-to-business transactions.
Work has begun to give small business an indemnity from prosecution under the Fair Work Act, where it has attempted to follow the rulings laid down.
Billson wants to make government more accessible and reliable for small business to deal with.
If big business complains about the focus on small business getting special attention and the need for economy-wide reform, Billson will nod his head and agree in principle but stress the fundamental lack of resources facing small business in dealing with the same issues as the big guys.
Just how much help is given remains to be seen.
Big business is understandably wary, but Billson fundamentally believes that small business is the engine of the economy and will go out of his way to be seen to be removing the impediments to its progress.