Article by Geoff Chambers, courtesy of The Australian
30.03.2025
Australia’s 2.6 million small business owners have launched an election blitz of marginal seats to pressure Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton into slashing company taxes for mum-and-dad operators and help thousands of businesses avoid shutting their doors.
Small business leaders on Monday will roll out a cashed-up advertising campaign across the country amplifying growing concerns of employers strangled by higher costs, rent, energy and insurance bills, red tape, labour shortages and industrial relations rules.
The Australian can also reveal NSW miners have ramped-up campaigning in key seats where at least five projects promising $1bn of investment and 3000 jobs are facing the same planning approvals gauntlet as the stalled McPhillamys goldmine.
After Jim Chalmers last week cut personal income taxes but provided little for small business, the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia will campaign to push Labor and the Coalition on lowering the corporate tax rate from 25 to 20 per cent for firms with annual turnovers of less than $20m.
Since the 2022 election, 29,275 companies have plunged into insolvency, with the vast majority of those being small businesses.
Polling and focus group research, commissioned by COSBOA and conducted by Insightfully, found 69 per cent of voters backed tax cuts for small businesses. Breaking down polling of 2043 voters to 1224 people in the 12 marginal seats of Bennelong, Curtin, Gilmore, Lyons, Menzies, Deakin, Ryan, Moore, Sturt, Cowper, Mackellar and Goldstein, support for small business tax cuts increased to 76 per cent.
The research, involving a mix of polling and four focus groups in Brisbane, Perth, western Sydney and Melbourne conducted between November and March, revealed 50 per cent of small businesses were worried about surviving without urgent support.
COSBOA chief executive Luke Achterstraat said small businesses, which comprise 97.7 per cent of all Australian businesses, employ more than 5.1 million workers and pump $500bn annually into the economy, are “bearing the brunt of the cost-of-living crisis, red tape and staff shortages”.
As 40 per cent of SMEs experience difficulty hiring and retaining staff, Goodfields Eatery co-owner Anthony Karnasiotis said “every part of the (Lindfield, in Sydney’s northwest) business has been impacted by rising costs”.
Mr Karnasiotis, who employs 30 full-time and casual staff with father and co-owner George in the Liberal-held marginal North Sydney seat of Bradfield, said “ordering, wages, electricity, insurance, accounting, HR … you name it, it’s gone up”.
The 35-year-old, whose father has operated cafes across Sydney since moving to Australia from Greece more than 30 years ago, said “it’s hard to keep up with red tape”.
“All the changes to IR laws have been a challenge and we just want consistency for our business and for our staff. The impact of a tax cut would be instant and huge,” Mr Karnasiotis said.
“It would allow us to put money back into the business, hire more staff, absorb the fluctuating costs so we don’t have to pass them on to our customers.”
Renee Baltov, owner of gentlemen’s grooming stores The Barberhood, said the past five of the 10 years she has run her business have been “really tough and I’m just happy to still be standing”.
Ms Baltov, who employs 16 full-time staff and operates two shops in Sydney’s CBD as well as an online store, said “over the past three years in particular, price increases have been phenomenal – wages, electricity, rent and insurance have all gone up”.
“(A tax cut) would mean we wouldn’t have to pass on price increases to our customers and my business could grow.
“The non-compete clauses announced in the budget will make it even harder for us. We’re a small hairdressing business and for us they’re really important for keeping our clients and our IP.”
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On the impact of government sponsorship fees, Ms Baltov said “it would cost much less for my business to hire Australians first but we simply don’t have the people taking up or completing skilled trades – many of us have no choice but to look to migrants as a solution to a crippling skills gap”.
NSW miners have also increased pressure on the government amid concerns over future planning decisions for five projects, including the Hillgrove extension of mine life (190 jobs), Triton Copper Operations Consolidation (293 jobs), Constellation (180 jobs), Bowdens Silver (230 jobs), Copi Mineral Sands (240 jobs) and Cadia East continuation project (1800 jobs).
NSW Minerals Council chief executive Stephen Galilee said “thousands of miners and their families live in federal electorates that could help determine the outcome of the next election”.
He said the McPhillamys decision “sent a very negative message about the Albanese government’s attitude towards new mining projects”.
The NSWMC has identified four key seats where mining votes will be crucial, including in the NSW Hunter region seats of Hunter, Paterson and Shortland, and the central NSW seat of Calare, which is held by former Nationals MP turned independent Andrew Gee.
