Members of the Chamber Committee recently met with the Treasurer, Minister for Energy and Minister for Home Ownership Hon David Janetzki MP and the Minister for Customer Services and Open Data and Minister for Small and Family Business Hon Steve Minnikin MP to discuss all things red tape, and the horror stories from some of the other businesses was nothing short of scary.

The roundtable consisted of local businesses and Chambers from not only Bundaberg, but Hervey Bay and Maryborough, discussing issues such as duplication of information requests between government departments, with the Small Business Minister providing his own example of a government department requesting the same data twice, for different processes, only weeks apart.

This example was reiterated by others with similar stories.

Two things really stood out during our discussions.

One was that red tape and departmental regulations, particularly those that make no sense, have a detrimental impact on the mental health of small and local businesses, who are often time and advice poor, preferring to do what they do best, which is run their business.

The second was that much red tape has become difficult to identify (initially), as the processes and requirements have been built into the business operations, becoming something that just has to be done.

This is why the Chamber continues to push the red tape message, and are encouraging all businesses, members or not, to let us know what red tape is impacting your business. It might be a license, a form, or a regulation – doesn’t matter, let’s work on removing it if we can.

A term that sends shivers down the spine of small businesses is “I’m from Government and I’m here to help,” but this time, I think the government is really looking for ways to make life easier for our small business community. Let’s make sure we give them some nagging examples.