Ken O'Dowd (Flynn, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I want to talk about small business. We are about protecting small business from unfair contract terms. Our government, under the guidance of the Hon. Bruce Billson, want to hear from you in the public, and you have until 1 August to get your submissions in before the competition policy review begins. The facts are that too many small businesses are offered standard type contracts on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. It should not be one hat fits all. They have little scope to negotiate, or have no scope at all to negotiate, with the landlords. When it is time to review the contracts—for example, the small print—they lack funds to employ expensive legal advice. Contracts often include unfair terms. Contracts leave small business very vulnerable. This is what we want to talk about and fix.

Some examples I could mention are that a contract may deny a small business the right to terminate the agreement; rent adjustments can favour the larger and chain retailer versus the small stand-alone operator; and they can move a competitor into an adjoining shop, which has been done—for example, you cannot have a bookshop and a paper shop or another bookshop in close proximity to each other because it would disadvantage one or the other. Opening hours is a big thing for small business. Small operators know when they are best set to open their shops. However, they are quite often involved in legal arguments with the landlord, and they find that they must open their shop in line with Big Brother, who might work longer hours under different awards. This is what is killing small business in some of my areas. The outfitting of a shop after a period of five years or 10 years, whatever the case may be, when there is no real need to do this, is also very costly. Some shops have to spend between $100,000 and $200,000 to refit a small shop, which of course does not allow for the disruption of business while the shop is being rebuilt.

There are many issues for small business, and they are being really pushed around by Big Brother, who calls the shots in a lot of cases. These are the types of things we want to fix. You can complete a 10- to 15-minute survey or you can write a formal submission into the industry body and you can voice complaints before we get to looking at the policy, by 1 August this year. (Time expired)