Mark Bouris on how small business owners are being left behind

A change is coming that will affect the incomes of every Aussie, but the change exposes how millions of Aussies are being left behind.

With the sharemarket performing at record highs and savings accounts operating at record lows, superannuation finds itself at the top of the agenda for our politicians.

Some of them want to abandon plans to raise compulsory employer contributions to 12 per cent by 2025, while others want to make any superannuation voluntary for low-income earners.

And as that debate continues to rage, do you know what most of Australia’s 2.1 million small-business owners will thinking? “Who bloody cares.”

The truth is that most small-business owners — and I meet plenty through my Mentor program — barely pay themselves a wage, let alone put money aside for their super. For them, the conversation about superannuation is irrelevant, just like the ongoing chatter about soaring stock prices. When you’re working 90 hours a week just to keep the lights on, it’s hard to focus on anything more than putting one foot in front of the other.

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But while they might be ignoring government chatter, our government can’t afford to ignore them any longer.

We continually talk about the success of industry super funds, but the narrative is silent when it comes to small-business owners. They simply don’t fit into the picture.

And yet small businesses are huge contributors to the economy. As of June 2017, there were 4.8 million people employed by small businesses, about half of the country’s total workforce.

While most small-business owners take some comfort in the idea that they’ll have an asset to sell when they’re ready to retire, plenty of them simply won’t make it that far. In fact, some 55,000 went bust in 2018 alone — and that number is increasing.

So what happens to those people, most of whom are left with debt and not a dollar in a superannuation account? Rightly, we as a nation take care of them through social policy. But surely we should help before it gets to that point?

Millionaire businessman Mark Bouris. Picture: Hollie Adams/The Australian

It is a tremendous risk to go into business today. People are scared, or scarred from past experiences, and it can get so bad that Sunday night becomes a recurring nightmare as they think about how they’re going to keep going for another week. Don’t believe me? Ask a business owner.

Add to that the pressure of collecting GST for the government, and the corporate behemoths that are waiting to out-spend you, out-market you or simply out-muscle you, and you’re left wondering why anyone would do it at all.

Now, I’m not suggesting the government fund small-business superannuation or anything like that, but it is time we as a nation directed our fiscal policy at the very people who keep the economy ticking along. And support for something this important needs to be bipartisan and permanent.

Reducing the company tax rates is a start, but an equally important step is to introduce long-lasting policy business owners can rely on. Take the $30,000 instant asset write-off, for example. As it stands right now, that policy — a lifeline for many small businesses — is in place until June 30, 2020. Businesses need to be able to plan for more than 12 months at a time, so let’s make that policy permanent, and let’s do it now.

And it’s not just government. We all have a role to play in keeping small businesses strong. And that means shopping with our butchers, our newsagents, our bakers. Get to know the person who runs your local fruit shop and cafe. Occasionally enter a shop rather than ordering something online.

They seem like small things, I know, but they add up to a world of difference for our struggling small-business owners.

And if we don’t look after the two million small businesses that employ five million Australian workers, we will risk killing those businesses over time.

And that will put five million workers out of a job — permanently.

Mark Bouris, AM, is an Australian businessman and the founder of Mentored.com.au, which gives online access to Australia’s greatest business minds | @markbouris