A Gunnedah business owner says the government needs to step up its game to keep rural towns alive.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Gunnedah Diesel Service's Wendy Marsh is disappointed to see so little in the 2019/2020 budget to help small business in the current drought conditions.
Read also:
In this year's budget, the federal government said it would increase the instant asset write-off threshold from $25,000 to $30,000 but Mrs Marsh said that's no help to her.
"There's nothing in it for us," she said.
"As drought relief, there's nothing there for small to medium-sized business, and those that can afford the instant asset write-off, that's fantastic. It's up to $30,000 but who can afford, in this climate, to purchase anything for that amount of money?" she said.
Related story: Potential budget billions for 'strategic roads'
The Gunnedah Chamber of Commerce member said she was sure the government had "lost sight of small business".
"I would like to see small business have the same access to funds that farmers do," Mrs Marsh said.
"Small business in regional areas is really doing it tough ... We've had to pull back on staff and we've rearranged advertising and electric bills."
The business owner raised her concerns about assistance for small business at Gunnedah's Meet the Candidate forum in March and felt she did not receive a substantial answer from the five candidates. Since then, Nationals' Kevin Anderson has been re-elected as Tamworth MP and Mrs Marsh said he would need to "get into the groove of finding out that the small business carries this country".
"Unfortunately, for [Kevin] and a lot of the other candidates that we met at the Meet the Candidates, none of them were willing to talk about the small business issues, so maybe there's an option for a forum to happen again where we could put forward our ideas directly," she said.
Chamber president Stacey Cooke echoed Mrs Marsh's concerns about small business being overlooked after posing a similiar question at the forum.
"Not one candidate gave a response that left us feeling like small business was a priority and our question remains unanswered," Mrs Cooke said.
However, Mrs Cooke said the announcement for tax cuts for small business is "the start of something that hopefully continues to assist businesses in our rural communities".
"Tax relief for hard working Australians and small business is always a welcome announcement from the Australian government, especially given the hard times of late and what we are anticipating given the flow-on effects of the drought."