VACC calls for increased government intervention

VACC executive director, David Purchase,  has told automotive and industry leaders that governments should be given a license to intervene in the business sector.

Purchase told more than 200 guests at the biennial VACC President’s Dinner that ‘responsible market intervention by governments’ would reap economic and social benefits, even if it meant some ‘inefficient’ small businesses were allowed to survive.

He says that he does not subscribe to the mantra that the market place should always decide. He says today’s market place is controlled by a handful of big businesses that ‘squeezed their small business suppliers, requiring them to do more and more for less and less’.

The Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce has represented small businesses in the retail, service and repair sector of the Australian automotive industry for more 95 years. The organisation is the peak automotive industry body, and the largest employer of automotive apprentices, in Victoria and Tasmania.

VACC  is concerned that big businesses are increasingly treating small businesses unfairly and, in some cases, unconscionably.

Two million small businesses employ nearly five million Australians, and 95% of all businesses are small businesses, each employing less than 20 employees.

“If we don’t want to lose these employment opportunities, if we want to retain our strip shopping centres, if we want to prevent the unnecessary demise of many of our small businesses, what should we do?” says Purchase.

“I think that responsible market intervention by Governments is the only way many otherwise small businesses will survive and retention of employment opportunities and other social benefits achieved.”

Purchase highlighted two examples, past and present, of positive and effective government intervention, namely, the Fraser Government’s Petroleum Retail Marketing Sites Act 1980 and the 5th Community Pharmacy Agreement between the Federal Government and the Pharmacy Guild of Australia.

“There is no way Governments are going to be able to reverse the fortunes of small businesses if they don’t value and recognise their contribution to the economy,” he says.