Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I hope my motion spurs the government to greater activity in relation to the National Business Names Register. The motion urges the House to note that the National Business Names register has been in operation since 28 May 2012. It urges the House to note that the Gillard government has failed to act to fix implementation problems with the National Business Names Register, which has left the privacy of home based businesses exposed. It also urges the House to note that businesses have been waiting on hold for up to 45 minutes to progress to an operator when contacting the ASIC hotline about these business names. And, finally, the motion urges the House to note and bring to the government's attention the large number of people who have had problems with registering, renewing, paying for and transferring business names since the National Business Names Register started.

I have spoken on this topic a number of times before, but I hope my contribution is both gripping and persuasive. I did draw to the attention of the House back in September 2011 that this is a process that started under the former Howard government. It is a good idea that deserves the support of the parliament. My contention is not about the quality of the idea, but the quality of the implementation of the idea. And that has caused much frustration and hardship to small businesses right across our continent as they seek to complete the relatively simple transactions of registering, renewing or transferring a business name, something they have done quite comfortably and with a minimum of fuss through a number of different registers.

The issue with those multiple registers was that they were not well connected and, for businesses operating in multiple jurisdictions, you had quite a challenge in renewing multiple registrations across multiple states. This was something which this measure was aimed to address and it has gone some way towards doing that. But goodness, how hard can it be! It has proven to be very challenging and a source of great frustration for people who have contacted me or corresponded with my office.

On 17 August 2011 I was briefed by the then Minister for Small Business, Senator Sherry. I am not sure whether that was four small business ministers ago or three, but he was one of five in 15 months, and that has probably caused you great concern, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, as it has me and the small business community. We had some specific issues raised with us by stakeholders, by small business organisations and in fact by some of the state and territory jurisdictions. We urged the government to make sure it understood that not all businesses are big businesses and that, for small business, the complexity of the system and the need to disclose their location of operation would be an enormous affront to, in particular, the many home based businesses, who had not been required to provide that level of detail before.

The small-business community—the home based businesses, the micro-businesses of Australia—was promised by the Labor government that its privacy would be protected. It did not happen. Those assurances turned out to be empty. They turned out to be something that could not be relied upon and this has caused great distress for the small-business community. They would go to register their names under the new system, knowing that under state based systems they were able to provide a post office box or something of that kind, something they were quite comfortable with and which facilitated the contact and disclosure that was being looked for. But no, they could not do that under the new system. It demanded they provide an address usable for the servicing of documentation, summons and the like—and for many that is their home. So that privacy issue was not satisfactorily addressed.

It still is not satisfactorily addressed today. It is one of a six issues I raised with the subsequent minister. I would like to thank the parliamentary secretary for facilitating that meeting with Mr Tanzer, the commissioner at ASIC who had responsibility for it. It was interesting. I think it was in September last year that we had that meeting. I was assured we would have some answers in a fortnight. Six months later we got some advice. Six months later we were told that there was some work going on to increase the capacity of the call centres, to deal with the extraordinary delays. There was some fudging on whether the system's changes, needed to protect the privacy issues, would be made.

We were told that it required more resources, policy variations and a change to systems. When we sought to find out whether those action steps had actually been taken, when this parliament considered the budget in detail for the department of industry that included the small-business budget, we could not get any answers. You know why not? The small-business minister did not bother turning up. The parliamentary secretary, who is very diligent ordinarily, did not turn up either. I had to ask Minister Combet, the minister for the carbon tax that has cruelled small business, what was going on with the business-names register. He did not have much of an idea. We got no comfort whatsoever that there is action being taken. I am optimistic that with Parliamentary Secretary Ripoll here today we might be able to get an update on whether the extra money that is being provided is going to increase the number of people at call centres and hopefully reduce the frustration that many in the small-business community are experiencing. That is what the budget paper says: we will have more money for more people at the call centres.

That is one part of the problem we raised with Mr Tanzer and one of the six issues we were supposed to have had resolved in a fortnight but which came back to us six months later. The question is whether those system changes have been made. I note there have been some changes in the way that business-transfer operations take place. There was a 28-day hiatus where a name was taken off the register and you just hoped and prayed no one pinched your name in the meantime. Now at least there will be multiple names registered against a business name, a vendor of a business and a purchaser of a business. I hope that will work, but we will find out and I am looking for some assurances from the parliamentary secretary that it will work.

The delays in calling the centre still seem to be a problem. It might be that we have not got to 1 July and we have not got those additional staff, but I am being very modest and conservative in a 45-minute wait. Many of the businesses that contact me say, 'Gee, I wish it were only 45 minutes; it's been much longer than that.' My message has been: this national scheme has to operate on west-coast time. If you are really stuck, ring after 5.30 on the east coast. Why? The centre has to operate in west-coast times. There is capability there after normal business hours on the east coast and that is probably a good time to call, but it should not be my job to give that kind of advice. The system should work and accommodate the traffic that it is experiencing.

Another area is the complexity in having your renewal processed. I have examples here where law firms have gone out of their minds. I am talking about legal practices with extraordinarily intelligent people incapable of navigating their way through this scheme, spending hours of staff time trying to get their names re-registered and renewed so that they can get a certificate of practice. I am encouraged by the fact that the registration fees might represent a net saving, but as we have to keep outlining time and time again to this government—that would not know a small business unless it organised a picket out in front of them—time is a scarce commodity for small business. They might pay a modest reduction in their fee, and that is to be encouraged, but they need to spend hours on the system on time they will never get back. That is extraordinarily expensive. That is why we have seen 22,000 new and amended regulations introduced by this government.

This was supposed to be an improvement in regulatory burden. It is actually operating the other way. That is why we have made some commitments about a reduction of a billion dollars in the cost of regulation. Why? It is not just the fee that matters; it is the time that is spent, the frustration and the inability to conclude what should ordinarily be a very straightforward transaction—that is, registering, transferring or renewing a business name. I have case studies after case studies. I have shared those with Mr Tanzer. I have shared those with the parliamentary secretary. All we are looking for with this motion is some action. The background has been impressive. The words have been reassuring. Where is the follow through? Where are we dealing with the issues of ambush marketing where business names with a geographic descriptor are being used to cut off business and to intervene in their trade? How are we dealing with people who cannot even register a name because of system problems—problems acknowledged by the government?

There were some stand-up issues with the technology that proved incapable of dealing with the demands placed on it. The advice provided to some small business was that there are 32,000 renewals to be processed and: 'We will get to you eventually. Keep trading even though we can't give you a validation of a renewal certificate.' It also relates to those call times: 'Best to call after hours on the east coast because it is geared up to work for west coast time.' That is kind of practical advice we should not have to provide because this should not be so complicated. It should be a net advantage to the small business community. It should respect and protect the home based businesses. But after the legislation that passed the other day, now they could get some boofhead come in and demand a meeting not in their staff room because they don't have one but at their dining room table. That is why they are concerned about their privacy. This is a good measure. I hope it is going to be executed better. I hope the parliamentary secretary will give us those assurances. I hope this motion does something to put a rocket under the government to get it right. (Time expired)

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