Mark Arbib: The first interview

Mark Arbib says once he gets a grip on the Small Business portfolio he’ll knock down doors to get things done.

A surprise appointment to the portfolio, Arbib says he has a great deal of experience with small business, and believes he can juggle the gig alongside his other jobs of Assistant Treasurer, Manager of Government Business in the Senate and the Minister for Sport.

In his first interview as Small Business Minister, Arbib explains his initial impressions on the health of SMEs, details where he wants to go with the portfolio, and why the carbon tax and paid parental leave aren’t as concerning for small business as rents and payroll tax.

What are your plans for the job?

At the moment… I’ve only been in the job for a month, so it’s spending as much time out there as possible talking with small business people. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks talking with the major stakeholders and hearing their concerns and where they’d like to see future Government policy. But at the same time, small business is really about people, so I’ve been getting out and talking to small business people and I think I’ve learned most doing that. So I’m still listening and trying to get a handle on the issues they confront.

If you talk to stakeholders in the areas I’ve worked in in the past, I work closely with the stakeholders, I try and listen to their concerns and then really, once you understand the direction you’re going, from there I’ll knock down doors to make it happen.

But at the moment, there are differing views about the sector and there are differing views about how we should approach future reform and policy. It’s about understanding those differences, but also… this is a Government that has done a great deal for small business; we understand the importance of small business.

So it’s also about communication, communicating what we’re doing now, because talking to small business people, there is an information deficit.

There’s a lot of reform happening, good changes that are going to help the cashflow and also reduce red tape, so I think we’ve got to get that message across.

So I hear that you’re talking to people and you’re hearing mixed messages about how small business is going.

That’s exactly right: as the Treasurer has said, we’ve got a two-speed economy, but when you get down to small business there are multiple speeds. Some small businesses in the food and beverage area, they’re doing extremely well, and there was some good ANZ data in the trades area, and some like retail are doing it tough. So it’s mixed news in terms of how small business is travelling.

But at the same time, the one thing that comes through is we need to increase consumer confidence.

While the economy here is strong compared to overseas, there’s still a lot of concern about the sovereign debt crisis in Europe and what effect that would have on this country.

And really, they want their politicians and leaders to be out there selling the strength of the Australian economy, they want us to be talking up confidence, not talking it down – and that’s something that I’ll be doing as the Small Business Minister but also as the Assistant Treasurer. I think it’s important we’re focusing on the strength of the economy because there’s plenty there, and that will help small businesses. I think we’re starting to see sales figures improve, with positive growth over recent months.

And that’s unlike the Coalition; every chance the shadow ministers have and Tony Abbott has, they talk the economy down.

Is the carbon tax coming up in your discussion as something small business is concerned about?

There have been some discussions, but it’s not front of mind for most small business. The bigger issue for them is looking at some of their fixed-cost issues; issues around rents is something that gets raised with me often.

Payroll tax is something that is constantly raised. It’s quite interesting where small business people have said to me, “We accept tax but the one tax we really hate is payroll tax because it’s an anti-growth tax, and why should we be taxed for employing more people?”

The strength of small business – and why Federal Labor is so committed to the sector – is small business is such a job generator. When you’re looking at five million jobs coming out of the sector, it’s really half of the private workforce.

So we need to ensure that we free up small business with as much as possible, provide with them as much tax relief as we can, and reduce red tape so they can continue employing people.

At the end of last year’s tax forum, Queensland in particular talked about making progress eliminating some of those unpopular state taxes. Has any progress been made on that?

Not yet, but it’s one of those areas I’ll be following up and working with closely. I’ve met with Chris Jordon, the chair of that group. I know that the Treasurer has set up Nick Greiner and a few other premiers to look at state taxes. But certainly getting reform for small business in the future, that’s something I’ll be willing to work on.