You’ve no doubt heard the highlights of the 2009 Budget brought down last Tuesday. But, what does it mean for your small business? Ask your questions here and we’ll help point you in the right direction to find answers. In the meantime here are a couple of resources: Dyamic Business and Smart Company have both covered the main issues that impact small business.

I do have a question for you though:

Is the Rudd Government doing enough to aid small business?

Take part in this national poll and tell us. We’ll share the results next week.

Tonight opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull will reply to the budget from the Liberals point of view. We’ve managed to get a copy of the response to the budget from Shadow Minister for Small Business, Steven Ciobo.

Click here to to read Shadow Minister Steven Biobo’s response to the budget.

We’d love to hear your thoughts.

The Autumn edition of the herVoice newsletter highlights an issue that affects all of us – the impact of the global economic climate on Australian business.

In the feature article, ABN Board member and business strategist, Susan Wareham McGrath writes about the current situation and provides plenty of practical tips and tools to assist your business in surviving the recession through the use of innovation, planning and smart management strategies.

Here’s a link to the Thriving - Not just Surviving Newsletter - for Women in Business .

Let us know your thoughts.

Have you felt the effects of the change in the economy? Have you made changes to your business plan?

We’d like to know how you’re dealing with changes in your business. Take our poll - at the right hand side of this page. 

We’ll publish the results in the coming week.  

Suzi

PS Feel free to leave a comment with more details, below! 

Today we had a call from the ABC’s Q&A show where federal politicians take questions from the Australian public. This is a great opportunity for our community of businesswomen to be represented and to have an opportunity to raise the issues that impact your small business. I’ll post details on how and when to apply to be in the audience as soon as I get them. 

As part of its $12 million commitment, the competitive grants program will provide between $5,000 and $15,000 to small businesses to help meet the set-up costs of family friendly working arrangements. The grants will support a range of initiatives, including:

• establishing rosters based on school terms and alternative core hours, for example, 10am to 3pm;
• developing workplace policies on unpaid leave for carers and workers who have children with disability or other special needs;
• providing facilities for employees with young children such as family rooms; and
• setting up workplace mentoring.

With up to $15 000 to allocate per small business, the Government is seeking innovative proposals that suit the individual needs of the business to promote a diverse range of family friendly initiatives.

ABN Board member Susan McGrath and Chairperson Suzi Dafnis will represent the ABN at the forum and we are interested to obtain input from members before 30 November.  Please contact policy@abn.org.au, or call Susan direct on 0439 908 108 if you would like to discuss. Alternatively you can comment on this post.

The ACT Government has announced two new grant programs; one to assist with buiding an overseas brand and one to assist with commercialisation.  

TradeConnect (TCon)—Building Global OpportunitiesAn ACT Government grant program assisting ACT companies build global opportunities and enhance international opportunities.

InnovationConnect (ICon)—Accelerating Creative Ideas

An ACT Government grant program designed to provide creative innovators and entrepreneurs with limited funding support that will accelerate the progress of viable, creative ideas along the development and commercialisation pathway.

For further information on the above grants and assistance programs, visit the Business and Industry Development Website. Click here for details.

As part of our mission to keep politicians up to date with the issues and barriers that women in business face, today I had the great pleasure of meeting with Julie Bishop MP, Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Shadow Minister for Employment, Business and Workplace Relations. 

She expressed a lot of interest in the ABN’s herVoice public policy and advocacy initiative and in the views of our members on changes in legislation such as the imminent change to unfair dismissal laws. 

We’ll keep you informed. In the meantime please table your concerns and issues on any issues that we can address with the government by emailing policy@abn.org.au.

This August Victoria’s Small Business Festival will provide inspiration, ideas and information for you small business with more than 360 events registered as part of the festival. Learn more at business.vic.gov.au/energise or by calling 13 22 15.

Yesterday 100 women from all over Australia participated in the Australian Businesswomen’s Network’s webinar: Government Support and Programs for Small Business, presented by Susan McGrath. Women explored the various grants, subsidies, rebates and programs available from both state and federal governments. 

One participant said: “This is my first webinar. Fabulous information. I have found it most useful.”

Participants continue the conversation and access resources via a specially-designed online community.

Following our initial contact with his office earlier this year, the ABN met with the Hon Dr Craig Emerson MP (Minister for Small Business) and his Chief of Staff on 8 July, to discuss a range of public policy issues identified by our community.

We raised with the Minister the need for more government support for women in small business, particularly in terms of business education and training; and the profiling of entrepreneurship as a career option for young women; the superannuation gap between males and females at retirement age, our members concerns about extensive compliance and regulatory issues for small business, the impact of skills shortages on our members and avenues for ongoing representation to government of our members’ further concerns.

In turn, the Minister discussed a range of small-business friendly initiatives that the Government has either introduced or is progressing. These include a superannuation clearing house which will ease the burden on business owners with less than 20 employees of having to pay employee superannuation contributions to different funds, a Business Enterprise Centres network to support small and micro businesses across Australia, 27 separate regulatory and compliance issues that the Government is in the process of streamlining, the application of general skilled and employer nominated migration streams to assist in easing the skills shortage and plans to introduce a national high speed broadband network.

In terms of government support for small business generally, we also raised our concerns about the closure of the previous government’s flagship Commercial Ready commercialisation funding program; and the Building Entrepreneurship in Small Business Scheme. The Minister advised that the funding was being transferred to programs that related to climate change and green business initiatives in line with the government’s focus on environmentally friendly enterprises.

We also discussed with the Minister our unique representative focus and the need for the ABN’s ongoing involvement in public policy development related to Australia’s female entrepreneurs and small business owners. As a result, we have been invited to contribute both informally; and as invited participants in formal consultative mechanisms as they occur.