Many people are in business for a variety of reasons; in fact 88% of all small business in Australia is Micro (employing 0-5) and 67.5% of all small business is run from a home base. It is often just too easy to dismiss this sector by stating "they are mainly hobbyists"; or "they are not running a business at all - they were forced to become contractors by bigger business". The truth of the matter is (according to the ATO) that 27% of this sector earn under $20,000 and the fact that they put in a tax return indicates that they consider they are running a business and not simply a 'hobby'. 18% earn between $20,000-50,000; 14% earn between $50-100,000 and 12% earn between $100-200,000. This means that 75% have less than $200,000 turnover but still put into the economy by their very existence.

The Queensland Government points out that these businesses should not be simply considered as businesses in incubation, as 42% have been in business for more than 10 years. Other States indicate similar statistics and show that most are family businesses with less than 3 employees.

Yet much of the legislation that is brought in by Government (usually to catch the 'bigger' small business operator deliberately 'rorting' the system) catches the innocents in its net. It is generally perceived by the small business operator that legislation strongly favours the individual employee and very little consideration is given to the individual employer.

I have made it my mission to bring these abnormalities to the attention of the business operator and to work with Government to try to bring some semblance of fairness and business common sense to legislation. To help you - I need your help too.

Support Organisations
1) I created the original Micro Business Network Inc for businesses who employ 0-5. Around 20,000 business operators from every State and territory in Australia, listed on the MBN data base.
2) Together with Jack Wu, I then commenced a chapter of the 'not for profit' association, Marketing Communications Executives International (MCEI - www.mcei.org.au ) in Melbourne, the only branch in Australia (head office is in Geneva and there are over a dozen Chapters around the world).
3) Next I created Home Based Business Australia (HBBA - www.hbba.biz )