Small business lobby lashes budget, backs Dutton's SME agenda
Labor and the Coalition are fighting over who will be seen as the party for small business in Australia. If the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia is anything to go by, the pendulum is swinging towards the opposition.
The nation's most influential small business lobby group has expressed concerns following the federal budget about the role the nation’s 2.5 million SMEs will play in a Future Made in Australia.
“We just see it as a missed opportunity for small business,” Council of Small Business Organisations Australia chief executive Luke Achterstraat told Capital Brief.
“In an environment where we’re trying to tame inflation, the government is giving out almost half a billion dollars to a private entity … [and] you’ve got a million small businesses not even breaking even,” he said, referring to the government’s funding of quantum computing firm PsiQuantum.
“For me, it just shows a really big disconnect from the localised economy to the institutionalised economy.”
