Abbott will take big business by surprise

The big business community does not appear to understand that the upcoming Abbott government will be different to any other post-war Coalition government since Menzies.

And we saw that illustrated this week when there was a sense of amazement when the Coalition supported a decision by the ACCC to block construction of a new supermarket in Western Sydney.

Large Australian corporations still can’t believe that one of the first actions of an Abbott government will be to raise company tax on the 3,200 largest corporations by 1.5 per cent (it’s a called a levy) to fund its parental leave scheme. The beneficiaries will therefore be small enterprises whose employees will receive the benefit but not pay the tax (Abbott's sneaky corporate slug to help the little guys, May 10).

One of the reasons that Abbott is achieving remarkable opinion poll results is that the small business community is discovering that whereas the Gillard government deliberately persecuted small enterprises, Abbott plans a government that will create employment via encouraging small enterprises.

An early Abbott move will be to extend the consumer protection laws to unfair contracts between large and small enterprises. The lawyers for large companies write contacts with their suppliers that are totally biased towards the large corporation and the small contractor must sign or else. All these contracts will have to be re-written. It’s an enormous task for large companies and will involve a complete culture change (Abbott shrugs off Labor's small business squeeze January 15).

At the same time there will be a savage Coalition attack on the regulations that have made operating a small enterprise so difficult. (Many public servants will become redundant.)

My guess is that prior to the election we will see a rise in unemployment and that before the end of the year unemployment will be approaching 6 per cent. Accordingly, success of the employment stimulation via a small enterprises plan will be vital for the new government. (Abbott's enterprise masterplan, January 30). 

Significantly the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) is running hard on the issue and says that small businesses are suffocating under too much government regulation.

The chamber has launched a new campaign, ‘The Big 4 You Can't Ignore', focusing on the main issues small businesses want addressed at the federal election (Small business suffocating under govt regulation: ACCI June 12).

The architect of the Coalition strategy is shadow small business minister Bruce Billson. After the 2010 election Billson was appointed Shadow Minister for Small Business, Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs.

I cannot recall a federal politician on either side who has devoted so much effort to small enterprise and the change he plans for Australia is of great significance.