Latest / Best of Business / Katherine Rich: Business NZ CEO says the Government needs to ease the burden on small businesses, not politicise it

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Katherine Rich: Business NZ CEO says the Government needs to ease the burden on small businesses, not politicise it · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from newstalks'd be follow this
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  Speaker 2: We are a country of small business. In fact, ninety
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  Speaker 2: seven percent of our economies made up of small businesses.
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  Speaker 2: So we got some new insight for you this morning
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  Speaker 2: on the issues that small businesses face. Came out of
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  Speaker 2: a big multi sector pain point discussion back in July.
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  Speaker 2: Business New Zealand did the work. They've got a thing
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  Speaker 2: called Reducing Compliance Burden Report and the CEO Catherine Riches
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  Speaker 2: with us on this Catherine Morning, to.
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  Speaker 3: You, Good morning.
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  Speaker 2: It was an association with the Business Innovation Employment People,
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  Speaker 2: in other words, the government. Do the government want to
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  Speaker 2: help because God knows how many interviews I've done over
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  Speaker 2: the years on small businesses who've known about red tape.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, I think they do, and that's why this work
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  Speaker 3: has created a really practical shopping list of changes that
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  Speaker 3: can be made that can start helping small business. Almost
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  Speaker 3: immediately that the report was excellent, people's businesses were very
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  Speaker 3: clear about what their pain points were. They listed out
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  Speaker 3: a lot of the issues, some were new, some were
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  Speaker 3: not so new. But with a Minister of Regulation, the
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  Speaker 3: Minister of commerce and Nicole McKey coming out, they're really
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  Speaker 3: clear they want to make some changes.
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  Speaker 2: Good how ideologically driven is all of this? In other words,
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  Speaker 2: this government might want to help, but the next one
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  Speaker 2: might not.
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  Speaker 3: Look A lot of the ideas on the list are
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  Speaker 3: very practical, because a lot of the debate about small
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  Speaker 3: business ends up making vague, vague statements about we want
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  Speaker 3: to cut red tape, but you've got to get into
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  Speaker 3: the specifics about what you're actually going to do. So
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  Speaker 3: this is a list of things that could make big changes,
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  Speaker 3: not sus to small business generally, but to entire sectors.
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  Speaker 3: For example, our hairdressers and barbers have been much ignored
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  Speaker 3: throughout the last fifty years or so. Many of their
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  Speaker 3: regulations date back to the Keith Holyoake's time. Now that's
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  Speaker 3: a one point four billion dollar sector and we get
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  Speaker 3: modern regulations for them. That could speed up up an
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  Speaker 3: entire sector. But it's a lot of other things, from
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  Speaker 3: employment agreements, food control. An early childhood center has to
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  Speaker 3: get a consultant and more or less to spend thousands
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  Speaker 3: of dollars to help them serve sandwiches and cut apple.
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  Speaker 2: The scale of do we all come from the same
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  Speaker 2: place when you gather all the people in the room,
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  Speaker 2: do we all go yep, Actually, you're right, it's too convoluted.
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  Speaker 2: So we're starting with the right intent.
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  Speaker 3: We start with the right intent. But often policymakers make
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  Speaker 3: things overly complicated because they're thinking about the big guys,
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  Speaker 3: not how it's going to be implemented by a small business.
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  Speaker 3: I mean things like the anti money launching rules. They
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  Speaker 3: had good intensions, but it's ended up being a convoluted
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  Speaker 3: process where you're having to prove who you are and
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  Speaker 3: where you live almost every three months.
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  Speaker 2: That's absurd. The interesting thing I don't know if you
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  Speaker 2: caught up with, was a story floating around yesterday about immigration,
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  Speaker 2: which ties in with small business. You know, still trying
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  Speaker 2: to get somebody into the car, if you're still trying
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  Speaker 2: to get a visa, it's too long. How much variability
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  Speaker 2: within the government is there for any given small business.
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  Speaker 2: In other words, you can ring a department who's quite good,
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  Speaker 2: another department are completely useless.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, there is a lot of variability, and small business
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  Speaker 3: just wants clarity. They just want to be able to
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  Speaker 3: look things up and get a clear idea of what
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  Speaker 3: they are supposed to do and That's why one of
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  Speaker 3: the suggestions was that all government departments should look at
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  Speaker 3: things through the lens of the small business in terms
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  Speaker 3: of the way they explain things. Immigration is a good example,
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  Speaker 3: but equally employment issues, holidays at issues, fringe benefit tax
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  Speaker 3: is a very good example. No, hardly anyone in some
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  Speaker 3: more small business understands that.
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  Speaker 2: All right, nice to talk to you, Catherine, and I
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  Speaker 2: wish you nothing but the very best in getting this
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  Speaker 2: sort of out. Katherine rich is the Business and New
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  Speaker 2: Zealand CEO. Eleven weeks. I'll come back to this later
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  Speaker 2: at the visas on immigration, eleven weeks for employer accreditation,
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  Speaker 2: twelve weeks for a job check, four months us for
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  Speaker 2: a work visa. I'm not proud of that in any way. Now,
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  Speaker 2: who said that, I'm not proud of that in any way?
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  Speaker 2: Who said that the person in charge.
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