ACCI says government needs to address cost of doing business first

Speaking on the Today Show on Thursday (5 May), Andrew McKellar said the Prime Minister’s pledge to help create 400,000 new small-business jobs in five years is “very interesting” and said it was not the most important issue facing businesses.

“What we are really looking for from the major parties, is policies that go to address [the rising cost of doing business] and address the critical pressures in terms of how business can get the labour that they need and address the supply chain,” Mr McKellar said.

“At the moment, the biggest issue that’s emerging is the increasing cost of doing business. And that’s affecting businesses right across a whole raft of different sectors. I think in the last three months we saw that nearly three out of five businesses faced costs going up more than usual.”

Mr McKellar said the government has to be careful the economy does not come to a point where prices are rising and outstripping wages.

“We have to be very careful that we don’t get into a situation here where prices are rising. Wages are chasing those prices and then we’re seeing that feeding into higher and higher interest rates,” he said.

“That’s really a recipe that we want to avoid. Of course, people want pay rises and businesses are happy to provide pay rises, but they have to be underpinned by productivity.”

He said that in terms of cost of doing business, the accommodation sector was one of the main areas where pressure was rising as was manufacturing, retail trade, and construction.

“A lot of these sectors have been the ones that have really struggled the most through the pandemic,” he said.

“There’s no quick fix with the supply chain. We’ve got to invest in capacity. We’ve got to look at how we promote industry locally. That’s part of the equation. We’ve got to fix our ports and our infrastructure.

“Those things can be done. But equally, we’ve got to focus on how we can encourage the labour market, get more skills and training for young Australians, encourage people back into the workforce, lift participation.

“It’s important that going forward that we do see the major parties putting forward a plan that they can implement in the next three years that will address those critical pressure points.”