The NAB has charged small business owners up to 2% above the interest rate that is charged to other businesses and individuals, kept the hard earned money of small retailers over weekends and public holidays by withholding EFTPOS transactions, and continued to gouge small businesses as has been shown by reports and research from the University of Canberra and the Reserve Bank. NAB has also shown a disregard for the owners of small businesses through practices at some local branches where processes for small business is more complex and wastes the time of a person running a business. (Click here to read the story that clinched the award for NAB)
The FAO is introducing Paid Parental Leave processes that create brand new red tape for small businesses. This red tape is completely unnecessary and will cause mistakes to be made and extra paperwork to be completed. The FAO could easily pay recipients without involving small business but they have deliberately chosen a more complicated way to complete the process. They are worthy winners of the very first Gold Business Bogie.
Congratulations to these winners and we hope that next year they are not included in the list of nominees. To nominate your choice for the 2011 Business Bogies and for more information click on the button on this page.
The Business Bogies Rationale
For too many years people with power and influence have claimed to know and understand and represent small business. Despite this small business does not fair well, independent retailers in particular find it harder and harder to operate in an increasingly unfair marketplace. These politicians and policy makers, these leaders of industry, will now be rewarded for their lack of care and their lack of understanding with an award. The Business Bogies.
Each year we will award a Business Bogie for persons or organisations that have, in the opinion of the judges, done the most damage to small business. We may award one Business Bogie or many depending upon the number of nominations and the depth of their lack of care. Business Bogies maybe awarded for specialist areas where lack of care and understanding has made life harder for the families of small business than it should be, these may include a Business Bogie for: a bank, a policy document, a government department or a big business of some type. Although a politician may win this award we intend to be as apolitical as possible. But be assured that the winners of the Business Bogies will deserve their award.
More details
The Business Bogies are a new set of awards which will be awarded to individuals, organisations and companies who create difficulties and barriers for the people who own and run their own business.
The Business Bogies will ‘out’ those who are uncaring and unhelpful and those who are predators on the individuals and families involved in small businesses. The Business Bogies will:
- make their actions and words public
- provide an ongoing and permanent reminder of the winners of this award through a perpetual trophy
- provide every day people a chance to finally vent their spleens, express their anger or show their concern by nominating someone or some organisation who has done the wrong thing by all or some of the 1.6m small business owners and their families.
There are around 1.6m small business owners in Australia; they employ between 4.5m and 5m people. They are the base of our economy, they collect our taxes, employ our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters, our parents and our friends. They provide diversity in the marketplace and are a contributing and significant part of the culture of Australia. They are honest hard working citizens of Australia who have a high compliance rate with tax and workplace relations demands.
Despite all this, and despite the fact that a small business owner is an individual, governments and bigger businesses continue to treat them as though they have the same knowledge, capacity, skills, resources and time as big businesses. They don’t.
Often, when a small business has trouble with legislation or with red tape or with business in general you can hear echoed through parliaments and in the offices of policy makers throughout the land the plaintive cry “What’s wrong with small business.” “Why is small business run by incompetents?” “Just how hard is it?” The better question is why do people in power continue to blame 1.6m other people for their own lack of understanding and policy skills? Maybe the people in power are incompetent?
And when a small business has financial trouble you’ll find that the root cause is often the behaviour of banks, big business and large landlords who will charge interest, fees and rents to the benefit of share holders and to the detriment of the families of small businesses and their communities. During the last decade the profitability of small retailers has fallen and the profits of large retailers and property managers have grown. During the last decade the price of groceries has increased and the range of choice for consumers has decreased. During the last decade governments have failed small business owners and the community. The GFC was not caused by small business, it came from the greed of big financial institutions and poor government policy in the USA, but the rescue packages went to the banks while small business just had to suffer. CEOs continued to get huge bonuses while small businesses often went backwards. Nice? No!
The proliferation of shopping malls has also seen the large landlords capture retail tenants and impose their own rules and regulations without any real protection offered to the tenants who are families and individuals trying to earn a living through self employment.
The changing nature of the workforce has also created a large number of independent contractors who earn their own way in life but are constantly under threat from poor contract management by large businesses and a lack of understanding and care from government.
So why have an award system that identifies the ‘bogies’ of small business? Why not write submissions and influence government through other means? The fact is that many many organisations, which employ highly skilled staff and experienced lobbyists, have not been able to provide a real difference to the lives of small business people. Red tape has increased and the behaviour of large businesses has become worse. Governments and big business tend to ignore any submission.
There has been no real downside for policy makers who mistreat small business, until now. The Business Bogies will provide another arrow in the quiver of those who wish to improve the lot of small business.
The awards will be judged by an anonymous panel of experts and small business owners. Nominations will be received from the general public and businesses owners. Due care will be taken by the selection panel to ensure that any award winner, or any person or organisation that is part of a final public list of nominations, is worthy of nomination.
No individual who is not in a position of authority or is not a key decision maker will be nominated. (for example a particularly rude bank teller or a junior public servant will not be a target for the award).
The final nominations will be released to the media before the award night. The final winner or winners will be announced at the event. Late nominations will be accepted right up to the time of announcement.
NB: No politician will be nominated for the award or will receive the award*. A politician would probably win the award every year, but if an award like this is given to a politician then the it will immediately be branded as ‘political’ and the decision makers accused of being aligned to one party or another.
And let’s face it; politicians of all types have never really understood small business. It was Labor that bought in a universal superannuation scheme, an excellent policy, but then they made hundreds of thousands of small businesses collect the money on the government’s behalf, a stupid and inefficient outcome! Then a Liberal government decided that it wasn’t stupid enough and they added super choice so that hundreds of thousands of small businesses had to deal with thousands of super funds, a more inefficient outcome!
The GST was introduced by a Liberal government which created the current situation where some 1.6m people collect most of the taxes that fund our infrastructure and the wages of the people that introduced this red tape nightmare. The Modern Awards system was introduced by a Labor government and this system has the same rules for a 2 person retail shop as it does for Coles or Woolworths with 50,000 employees.
No government has shown any understanding of small business and what they need.
So please assume that every year lots of politicians are eligible for the Business Bogies and would probably win.
*The Business Bogies election panel reserves the right to still award a politician a prize of some sort if they have been particularly uncaring and stupid.
In recognition of these policy makers and the boards and the CEOs of institutions that make life harder for families involved in small business we have a national award.
The Business Bogies can be made to one very worthy winner or can be a range of awards depending upon the calibre of the nominations. The award will be announced at the annual Business Bogies dinner. The award has a website where nominations can be made. The categories to be considered will include:
Big Business
Big businesses that show particularly unfair practices
Finance
Any financial organisation or related CEO/Chairman who has provided the worst service and the most unfair treatment to small business
Government
Any federal, state or local government organisation that has made business difficult for small business
Policy
Any policy, or any quote from a policy, that shows lack of understanding and lack of regard for small business
· Banks
· Particular policy proposals
· Local government
· Big Landlords
· Suppliers
· Large businesses that compete with small business
· Federal, State and Territory government departments and agencies
· Individuals who make a comment that is particularly revealing about their attitude to small business or damaging to small business people
· Any institution such as universities, business groups and associations
· Others as necessary
The Business Bogies cannot be awarded to a small business. The judges will decide what constitutes a small business.
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A real story about how a NAB branch treats small business owners - this story helped clinch the award of Worst bank of 2010 for NAB.
The owner of a mini-mart in Western Australia has regularly collected change (coins and notes) from his local NAB branch. He regularly contacted the branch with his order for coins and notes. Then the bank changed the system so he couldn't ring, but had to fax his order, which he did. Then the bank changed the system so that he had to fax the order on a special bank form. That was fine as well. Then the bank told him that he had to fax the order at least half an hour before he would pick up the change, that was also fine.
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So he dutifully went into the bank half an hour after he faxed his order. He stood in the shortest line and waited his turn. He eventually got to the front of the queue and asked for his order. The teller told him he was in the wrong line as only the end teller would provide previousy ordered change. He said "That's OK, could you just walk up there and get my change". The teller replied "no" and that he would have to wait in the other line to get his change. He asked again if she could just walk the 5 metres to get his change. She answered that the system required him to stand in the other line. After some debate he reluctantly went and stood in the new line.
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Eventually he was served and asked for his change. Then he noticed that a new customer had gone to the first teller and asked for change and she served him and gave him the change he needed. The owner of the mini-mart (let's call him Bob) was confused and asked why that customer could get change when he couldn't. The teller replied "oh he didn't order his change so he could get it off anyone". AMAZING! It appears that this bank saw a small business owner as a nuisance and tried to make their own lives easier by making his life a bit harder. Bob went back to his shop and thought he would ring NAB and complain. He rang the number and after several recorded messages and several waiting periods he eventually got to the small business help desk - the recorded message told him "NAB is introducing new ways to make business easier for small business."
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A new story received on 24/5/10 : "They are still charging me account keeping fees for an account that has been closed for 12 months - they keep misplacing my emails about this and ask me to resend them and then they 'get lost' again." (Rest of message censored).
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The Small Business Fighting Fund
To contribute to the Small Business Fighting Fund make your payment into the account below. Use your business name or your last name in the details. Click
here to send your details and we will post you a certificate acknowledging your support.
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BSB: 063 297 Account Number: 10012640
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All funds will be used to further the cause of small business. It will not be used to support any political party and we would never recommend one political party over another. We will review policies, compare policies and criticize policies based on their impact on small business owners.
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All contributors will receive a certificate acknowledging their support of small business.
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