Small business confidence critical following Trump win

IPA chief executive Andrew Conway said Australia faces a tremendous economic challenge as it positions itself in an increasingly competitive region, speaking at the launch of the IPA SME Research Centre.

“The emergence of the Trump government in America comes with uncertainty over current and future free trade agreements which may impact on our international relationships with other countries,” said Mr Conway.

“And I am sure that discussions around Brexit will shortly shift to ‘Brentry’; as in, which markets the UK will seek to enter.”

Mr Conway said Australia is uniquely placed to influence trade and investment opportunities in new markets.

“Australia is uniquely placed to influence trade and investment opportunities in new markets,” he said.

“Critical to this will be whether small business has the confidence to employ and to explore. Employing more people and exploring new markets will help ensure small business owners, their families and our communities are in a position to seize the growth potential.”

This cannot happen, Mr Conway warned, with a blind expectation that government has the capacity to solve these problems and lay these policy foundations in isolation.

“Our stagnating productivity growth as a nation threatens our quality of life. One of the critical levers that government and industry must acknowledge and trigger is to unleash productive capabilities of small business,” said Mr Conway.

“Our job is to think big and back that up with reasoned and sound evidence and that is the role of our SME research centre.”

Research is not an end in itself, he said, it is an enabler and is about building a seminal body of evidence to support a proposition.