Good story from Bega District News about the local MP, Andrew Constance, taking a job at a local small business for a day to better understand small business. He is one of several politicians participating in Pollies for Small Business as part of Small Business Month.
I am interested in this story for two reasons.
1. I’d like more politicians to take this step, especially those in Federal politics. I’d like Helen Coonan, the minister responsible for Australia Post, to spend a day at my newsagency and feel first hand the frustration of competing with the government owned Australia Post shop opposite.
2. Australia Post is connected with the Pollies for Small Business program. That surprised me. Well, sort of. I appreciate that there are many small business owners who operate Licenced Post Offices. Australia Post, the government owned business, also operates plenty of their own retail outlets where they compete aggressively and, I say, unfairly, against small business.
It is cheap and cynical for Australia Post to connect with small business through this campaign. If they really cared about small business they would stop trying to harm newsagents. They have stalked our channel for more than ten years and have leveraged their exclusive postal traffic into good business for stationery, greeting cards, Western Union and other areas which newsagents had first.
I’ll repeat my mantra: the Federal Government should divest itself of Australia Post retail outlets to individuals and small businesses. Only such a sell off would prove the government’s credentials to small business owners. I am certain that any politician spending a full day in my newsagency would agree with me.
I am tired of having the government competing directly with me for customers and no one doing anything about it.