Small businesses to get 24 days in the sun

By COLIN JAMES


John Tamihere says he is serious about small business. After all, they pay a lot of tax to keep people like him in limousines and they employ most of the workforce. Their overall year-on-year growth was 5.5 per cent in the year to June, well above the 4.2 per cent for the economy.

So stand by for 24 "small business days" around the country, starting on February 13.

Tamihere, who is Minister of Small Business, and the bureaucracy will front, ask questions and answer them and successful businesspeople will offer tips. He is promising "no spin and no smarm" and action.

Between January 26 and the launch, 34 of Tamihere's Labour MP colleagues are, at his request, to meet a small businessperson each, one-on-one, to learn a tiny bit of what it is like to be on the receiving end of the Government's tender mercies.

The small business days follow on from former Small Business Minister Paul Swain's business compliance costs taskforce, which Tamihere inherited and whose recommendations he is still working through.

But he wants to go further. He thinks the Government does not get an accurate measure of small business views because the lobbying by the Business Roundtable and Business New Zealand is not appropriate to small business. Hence the appointment of a nine-member small business advisory group last year.

The small business days have been developed by a steering committee comprising New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, the Ministry of Economic Development, the Economic Development Association, the Chambers of Commerce and employers and manufacturers organisations.

They are open to all and are intended to:

* Promote what the Government is doing to help small businesses so they make more use of what it is offering.

* Get a dialogue going and build some relationships.

* Examine barriers to growth and performance.

* Give tips one-on-one from someone who has made a success of a small business.

* Celebrate business success.

At the first small business day in Wellington there will be a "public expo that celebrates small business", seminars on growth and a speech from a successful businessperson, according to a briefing paper. Agencies such as ACC, the Inland Revenue Department and Occupational Safety will be there. In the regional days that follow, local economic development agencies will "bring in the flavour of the region", Tamihere said.

"Achievements in business should be celebrated. The days of the Fay, Richwhites in the 1980s are over. We all live of this ecosystem" of small businesses, he said. "We need to make love to small business."

And he promises Government action based on what the days deliver. "The Government will review and where appropriate modify small business-related initiatives," the briefing paper says.

According to a National Bank survey this month, small and medium businesses report lower profits per worker than large firms.

The exceptions are "micro" firms - many of which are family businesses and may under-report employees.

But all classes of small business reported higher returns on assets in the 2002 financial year.