Small business launches million-dollar-plus election campaign

Business groups today launched a “Too big to ignore” election campaign to raise awareness about small business issues ahead of the September election.

The national campaign is being led by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and state business bodies.

It is using a website and social media campaign to highlight the core issues facing small business ahead of the election.

These issues include government costs and red tape, tax relief, employment reform and infrastructure development.

Peter Anderson, chief executive of ACCI, told SmartCompany the national campaign was launched in the presence of small and medium businesspeople in Australia, with links to major capitals and regional areas.

“The message we’re giving now is that small businesses will mobilise their voice and make a big noise in the lead-up to this year’s election,” he says.

“Small business plays a big part in what’s happening…and we want to make sure small business has a voice across the country. That’s what the campaign is about – making sure small business is heard in this election campaign.”

Mark Stone, chief executive of the Victorian Employers Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told SmartCompany the problem for small business has been the tendency for political parties to focus on big business interests.

“Because you are talking about hundreds of thousands of individual businesses, they don’t have the ability to have their voice heard so we are giving them a vehicle to do that,” he says.

“We are using social media very heavily to get the message out there. We will be asking small business to promote the campaign in shop windows and with their employees and their customers, and over the coming months we will start to build a stronger policy platform and put that to the two major parties, and subsequent to that small business has to be better recognised in the decisions of government.”

Stone says the campaign is “very small” at this stage but will cost over a million dollars to fund.

Small business owners and employers are encouraged to voice their personal business stories on the campaign’s website, through social media platforms Facebook and Twitter, and via short video messages, with the aim of directing these messages to Canberra.