Menzies House

Shopping online is good?

Brent Fleeton has strong views about online shopping. Gerry Harvey might not agree!

Overnight the Australian Retailers Association (ARA) announced their response to the Low Value Parcel Processing Taskforce final report. Now, it is to be expected that protectionism is the ruling economic policy of the ARA, but their call for Australian consumers to be taxed for purchasing goods online that will see a parcel arrive from overseas shows how out of touch this lobby group is with everyday Australians. I must admit I am unlike many of the good burghers at the ARA, as I am biased towards consumer freedom in a global economy.

Like many friends and colleagues, I shop online for many goods for one reason – the power of my dollar gets a better quality product for a lower price online than if I was to shop in Australia. As an example I unashamedly have expertise in, buying a suit from an Australian retailer doesn’t make economic sense because the prices are lower and the quality is better if you visit the online shopping sites of a host of British or American tailors. To tax my purchase and use the reason that “... the additional state revenue will translate to community benefit - police, teachers and nurses.” is simply laughable.

Labor Just Doesn’t Get Small Business

I see former union hack official Brendan O'Connor is the newly appointed 4^th Minister for Small Business.

How foolish of me to think Gillard would appoint someone who had started or managed their own small business and can empathise with small business entrepreneurs.

Finally under Labor, the Minister for Small Business will be a Cabinet member. Senator Mark Arbib was the last Minister for Small Business.

Consider these small business statistics:

(For statistical purposes, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) defines a small business as an actively trading business with 0–19 employees.)

• There were 2,051,085 actively trading businesses in Australia as at June 2009. Around 96 per cent were small businesses (1,961,337), 4 per cent were medium-sized businesses and less than 1 per cent were large businesses.
• Small businesses provided employment for almost half of total industry employment in 2009–10, which equates to almost 4.8 million people ¹.
• Small businesses contributed around $294 billion or 35 per cent of industry value added in 2009–10.
• Small businesses account for 85.7 per cent of employment in the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector, compared with 47.6 per cent in the services sector, 30.2 per cent in the manufacturing sector and 13.9 per cent in the mining sector.
• As at December 2008, almost 50 per cent of business owners estimated working more than 40 hours in a typical working week. 22 per cent of business owners estimated working 41 to 50 hours, 18 per cent estimated working 51 to 70 hours, and 6 per cent estimated working over 70 hours. Of those owners (4 per cent of business owners) estimating they worked less than 40 hours per week, 17 per cent estimated working 31 to 40 hours, 17 per cent estimated working 21 to 30 hours, 11 per cent estimated working 11 to 20 hours and 8 per cent estimated working 0 to 10 hours.

At least Tony Abbott and the coalition rightly acknowledge the important role small business plays.

 

 

Key Small Business Facts and Statistics can be found here.

¹ ABS Cat. No. 8155.0.

Update: Labor has finally  just made the small-business portfolio a Cabinet post.

The ALP are yet to update their Ministers page.

My post has now been corrected to relfect the change.

 

Follow Andy on twitter