Katherine Rich: Business NZ CEO says the Government needs to ease the burden on small businesses, not politicise it

Small businesses want the Government to rethink regulations it describes as a burden. 

A new report from Business NZ claims small Kiwi businesses are bogged down by compliance hurdles and complicated regulations, which it says cost time and money. 

Business NZ CEO Katherine Rich told Mike Hosking politicians need to ease the burden, and not politicise it. 

She says too often the debate around small business involves politicians promising to cut red tape, but she says they need to be more specific about what will actually change. 

Rich says they've provided a practical shopping list of possible regulation changes that would help businesses almost immediately. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We are a country of small business. In fact, ninety
seven percent of our economies made up of small businesses.
So we got some new insight for you this morning
on the issues that small businesses face. Came out of
a big multi sector pain point discussion back in July.
Business New Zealand did the work. They've got a thing
called Reducing Compliance Burden Report and the CEO, Catherine Riches
with us on this Catherine Morning to.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
You, Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
It was an association with the Business Innovation Employment People,
in other words, of the government. Do the government want
to help because God knows how many interviews I've done
over the years on small businesses who've known about red tape.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yes, I think they do, and that's why this work
has created a really practical shopping list of changes that
can be made that can start helping small business almost immediately.
The report was excellent. People's businesses were very clear about
what their pain points were. They listed out a lot
of the issues, some were new, some were not so new.

(00:54):
But with a Minister of Regulation, the Minister of Commerce
and Nicole McKee coming out, they're really clear they want
to make some changes. Good.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
How ideologically driven is all of this In other words,
this government might want to help, but the next one
might not.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Look a lot of the ideas on the list are
very practical, because a lot of the debate about small
business ends up making vague, vague statements about we want
to cut red tape, but you've got to get into
the specifics about what you're actually going to do. So
this is a list of things that could make big changes,
not us to small business generally, but to entire sectors.

(01:34):
For example, our hairdressers and barbers have been much ignored
throughout the last fifty years or so. Many of their
regulations date back to the Keith Holyoake's time. Now that's
a one point four billion dollar sector and we get
modern regulations for them. That could speed out an entire sector.
But it's a lot of other things, from employment agreements,

(01:58):
food control plans. An early child wildhood center has to
get a consultant and more or less to spend thousands
of dollars to help them serve sandwiches and cut apple.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
The scale of do we all come from the same place?
When you gather all the people in the room, do
we all go yep? Actually, you're right, it's too convoluted
so we're starting with the right intent.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
We start with the right intent, but often policymakers make
things overly complicated because they're thinking about the big guys,
not how it's going to be implemented by a small business.
I mean things like the anti money laundering rules. They
had good intensions, but it's ended up being a convoluted
process where you're having to prove who you are and
where you live almost every three months.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
That's absurd. The interesting thing I don't know if you
caught up with, was a story floating around yesterday about immigration,
which ties in with small business. You know, still trying
to get somebody into the country, still trying to get
a visa, it's too long. How much variability within the
government is there for any given small business. In other words,
you can ring a department who is quite good, another
department are completely useless.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah, there is a lot of variability, and small business
just wants clarity. They just want to be able to
look things up and get a clear idea of what
they are supposed to do. And that's why one of
the suggestions was that all government departments should look at
things through the lens of the small business in terms
of the way they explain things. Immigration is a good example,

(03:24):
but equally employment issues, holidays at issues, fringe benefit tax
is a very good example. No, hardly anyone has some
more small business understands that.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
All right, nice to talk to you, Catherine, and I
wish you nothing but the very best in getting this
sort of out. Katherine Rich's the business in New Zealand
CEO eleven weeks. I'll come back to this later. At
the visas on immigration, eleven weeks for employer accreditation, twelve
weeks for a job check, four months for a work visa.
I'm not proud of that in any way. Now, who

(03:56):
said that, I'm not proud of that in any way?
Who said that the person in charge?

Speaker 2 (04:02):
For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Listen live to News Talks at B from six am weekdays,
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