Developments in the Australian Small Business Sector Since 1970

Michael T. Schaper, Ph.D. Adjunct Professor, School of Management, Curtin University GPO Box U 1987, Perth, Western Australia 6845 Phone: +61 (0)423 731 311 Email: [email protected] Abstract1 This paper outlines major developments between 1970 and 2010 in four areas: size of the SME sector, the role of government, evolution of industry associations, and developments in education and research. In 1983-84 there were an estimated 550,000 small firms, and by 2010 this had grown to almost two million. Government involvement in, and support for, SMEs was virtually non-existent before 1970. Following the delivery of the Wiltshire report (1971), governments responded by developing specialist advisory services, funding programs and other support tools. Specific Ministers for Small Business also began to appear in the 1980s, as did a number of small business development corporations. Key industry groups to have been formed since 1970 include the Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia in 1977, Business Enterprise Centres Australia (1999), the Australian Institute of Enterprise Facilitators (1997) and the Independent Contractors of Australia (2001). Whilst there were almost no specific SME educational facilities in the early 1970s, by 2010 most universities offered some form of small business course. A national educator body, the Small Enterprise Association of Australia and New Zealand, was formed in 1987 and affiliated to the International Council for Small Business in 1992. Keywords: history, government, Australia, education, advice

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Special thanks are owed to the following persons who provided feedback and information used in the writing of this paper: David Back, Colin Dunn, Geoff Fader, Lauren Ford, Domenic Greco, John Mercer, Geoffrey Meredith, Ken Phillips, Tony Watts, Julian Webb and Sue Weston

Introduction Historical accounts of the development of small business are a relatively new phenomenon in academe, even though small-scale enterprise is as old as human commercial endeavour. Like many emergent disciplines, the focus of most small business researchers to date has been on identifying, explaining and modelling the small enterprise phenomenon; there has been little attempt to try and chronicle the evolution of the sector. Whilst there have been a number of histories written of SME development in other countries (see, for example, Sato 1989, Blackford 2003, Forje 2009, Jurado 2010, Marchesnay 2011), there have been only a few attempts to document the progression of small business in Australia Authors such as Sykes (1988), Hartwell & Lane (1991) and Brown (1996) have chronicled the role of small-scale entrepreneurs in the nation’s early years, and Meredith (1993) has briefly outlined some of the key policy initiatives in recent decades, but such publications have been relatively few and far between. In many respects, this omission is understandable. As Blackford (2003) has noted, business historians have long tended to focus on the activities of large firms, since they have a bigger individual impact, are easier to track, usually maintain the records needed for subsequent historical analysis, and attract much more media and public commentary. Like a number of other countries, widespread awareness and understanding of small business has arrived in Australia only comparatively recently. While some nations, such as the USA and Japan, established national agencies and strategies to promote the SME sector as far back as the 1940s and 1950s (Campbell 1975), the Australian experience more closely reflects that of the United Kingdom, France, New Zealand and a number of other OECD nations. In each of these countries, there were some early tentative attempts to deal with small enterprises in the 1970s. However, it was not until the mid-1980s and 1990s that a substantive public and government acceptance of small-scale enterprise emerged. As a result, the period between 1970 and 2010 was one of marked change for the small business sector. At the beginning of that time, there were few services for small firms, little knowledge of the area, minimal government involvement, and few organisations focused on the field. Forty years on, however, the landscape is quite different. Today the notion of small business is well embedded into the institutional, educational, and governmental structures of the country. There are a plethora of organisations and programmes focussed on small business, or on issues directly related to SMEs. Whilst almost all parties agree that there is still much more that can yet be done to help the sector, the amount and range of assistance already available would be almost unrecognisable in comparison to the 1970s. This paper spells out some of the major developments over those forty years, by examining a number of core areas that affect the small business sector. The emphasis is on a limited number of issues, rather than attempting to paint a “blow by blow” description of every action that has affected small firms in Australia. It is always debatable what areas should be documented, how, and in what detail. By necessity, some areas receive much attention; others little. In this case, the focus is on four key factors: growth in the size of the sector (which

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necessarily entails a discussion on how small business has been defined and counted), the role of government (including legislation dealing with the sector, the creation and dissolution of specialist agencies to work with small businesses, and programs designed to support business), the emergence of key industry groups (who have acted as the representatives and voice of the sector), and the evolution of education, training and research services. Overall Sectoral Dimensions The size of the small business sector has grown dramatically over the last forty years, from a population of just a few hundred thousand enterprises to one that, in 2010, contained almost two million small firms. Throughout that period, small and micro-sized businesses appear to have consistently accounted for over 90% of all Australian businesses (see Table 1). However, measurement of the true size of the sector over this time has been somewhat uncertain. The primary source of information about the number of small businesses in Australia during this time has been the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), a statutory authority of the Commonwealth government that serves as the central national statistical agency. As early as 1948 the Bureau was publishing a Census of Retail Establishments, and by 1968 had begun publishing Enterprise Statistics, Australia. However, although some figures on employment size were included, the counts of businesses in these early publications were often confined to selected industries, such as manufacturing, retail trade and selected service industries. There were no nation-wide data collected until the 1980s, when the first issue of Small Business in Australia (1988) was released. The ABS data in that publication indicated that there were some 550,000 small and microsized firms in Australia in 1983-84, accounting for 96% of all private sector organisations (ABS 1988). Since that time, various counts have shown consistent growth in the number of small businesses, and by 2010 about 2 million such enterprises were recorded as operating across the country (see Table 1). The initial publication of small business data was soon followed by a variety of other statistical counts which began to develop a deeper understanding of the sector and of the operators who worked within it. By the 1990s the ABS was publishing a variety of different reports with specific information about the SME community, including data on the personal demography and background of Australian business owner-operators (Characteristics of Small Business, and then Counts of Australian Business Operators), regional SMEs (Experimental Estimates, Regional Small Business Australia), and business entry and exit rates (Counts of Australian Businesses). In the mid-1990s, it also embarked upon a (relatively short-lived) Business Longitudinal Survey, in conjunction with the Department of Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business (1998).

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Table 1: Small Business in Australia, 1983-2010 Number of firms (proportion of all firms) 2010

2002

1998-99

Micro-businesses (0-4 1,727,380 (84.2%) 952,200 (81.80%) 791,400 (79.9%) employees; includes selfemployed persons)

1995-96

1983-84

748,400 (80.16%) 455,400 (78.67%)

Small business (5-19 employees)

233,957 (11.4%)

169,800 (14.59%) 159,800 (16.14%) 147,900 (15.84%) 99,200 (17.13%)

Medium enterprises (20-199 employees)

83,399 (4.1%)

39,300 (3.38%)

36,100 (3.65%)

34,600 (3.7%)

22,500 (3.9%)

Large firms 6,349 (200 or more employees) (0.3%)

2,800 (0.24%)

2,700 (0.27%)

2,700 (0.29%)

1,800 (0.31%)

Total

1,164,100 (100%) 990,000 (100%)

933,600 (100%)

578,900 (100%)

2,051,085 (100%)

Sources: Australian Bureau of Statistics (2000: 27-29; 2002:27; 2010:19). Totals may not add up due to rounding

The work of the Bureau was also significant in the development of a commonly-accepted definition of the SME sector. Prior to the 1970s, the term “small business” was regarded more as a generalised notion than a formal type of business. The Wiltshire Committee first enunciated a working definition of small firms, to wit: “A business in which one or two persons are required to make all of the critical management decisions – finance, accounting, personnel, purchasing, processing or servicing, marketing, selling – without the aid of internal specialists, and with specific knowledge in only one or two functional areas.” (Report of the Committee on Small Business 1971: 11) However, it was not until 1988, when the ABS published Small Business in Australia, that a more precise, measurable definition was postulated which gained widespread acceptance and common use. The Bureau defined a small business using two dimensions: employment size (namely, a small business was one with less than 20 employees) and nature of managerial control (as the Bureau put it, a small business is a firm that “…is independently owned and operated; it is closely controlled by the owners-managers who also contribute most, if not all of the operating capital; and the principal decision-making functions rest with the ownersmanagers”) (ABS 1996: 1). Since that time, the definition used, and method of its counting, has varied a little. Whilst the notion of independent managerial control has been retained, in 1990 the employment size

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criteria was amended so as to separate small firms into two categories: those in manufacturing (who were regarded as small businesses if they employed less than 100 persons), and those in other industries (who were counted as small if they had under 20 employees) (ABS 1996). In 1999, after a comprehensive review of such definitions, the ABS settled on a revised typology. It segmented businesses into four groups: micro-enterprises (which employ 0-4 staff), small businesses (employing 5-19 persons), medium-sized firms (having 20-199 employees) and large businesses (with 200 or more staff) (ABS 2000:2). Whilst references to the extent of managerial control are no longer employed, these numeric definitions have formed the basis for almost all subsequent ABS data counts and been used as a working definition of small business by many government policymakers, industry advocates and academic researchers. Whilst the issue of what is a small business seems to have been settled for the purposes of data collection, the question of how many is still uncertain. The various changes to ABS definitions have resulted in many published counts not being directly comparable over time. Even today, the full size of the sector remains somewhat indeterminate. Early ABS publications generally relied on samples of business counts to infer a total population size, and occasionally figures needed to be adjusted in subsequent publications to take into account errors of sampling or process. After the introduction of the national Goods and Services Tax (GST) and the Australian Business Number identifier in 2000, the ABS was able to obtain more accurate counts by reference to these sources. The data published in Counts of Australian Business, for example, rely heavily on firms that are enrolled within the national GST system. However, that process does not guarantee a full count of all small businesses, since firms that have a turnover of less than $75,000 (the current threshold for mandatory reporting of GST) are not always included. As a result, the number of very small enterprises is, if anything, likely to be under-reported, and the true figure of operating micro-businesses may yet be greater than the data indicates. Public Policy In a modern market economy, government plays an important role in economic development, provides incentives to individual firms, and has extensive involvement and relationships with private sector commercial organisations. These can take a variety of forms, including support and assistance programmes, business-specific legislation, the machinery of government, and political and parliamentary tools. In 1970, there was little, if any, public sector activity focussed on SME issues. However, the next forty years were to see the development of a wide array of responses to small business needs. In 1968, the federal Minister for Trade and Industry appointed an expert group to explore “…ways of providing guidance to small business management to help in improving efficiency” (Report of the Committee on Small Business 1971: 5). This landmark enquiry, which became more commonly known as the Wiltshire Committee report, constituted the first known formal whole-of-government examination of the SME sector.2 It handed down its 2

It is notable that this report was commissioned before the landmark UK equivalent inquiry,

Committee of Inquiry on Small Firms (Bolton report) of 1971.

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Report of the Committee on Small Business in mid-1971, and the enquiry’s work has since formed the basis for much public policy in the area. The committee looked at a variety of different issues, including the construction of a workable definition of small business, the overall economic significance of the sector, key problems facing small firm operators, the case for government intervention, the role of trade organisations and professional associations, and the capacity for educational institutions to improve managerial skills and knowledge. The review argued that government could do much more to assist the sector, and concluded that “…an important role for government to play is that of catalyst, stimulating and motivating the managers of small business and all bodies capable of serving them…” (Report of the Committee on Small Business 1971: xv). One of the committee members also subsequently published a more detailed blueprint for a National Policy for Small Enterprise Development (Meredith 1975). One of the first by-products of the committee’s work was the creation of a National Small Business Bureau by the federal government in 1973. The Bureau operated between 1973 and 1976, and undertook research into SME issues, as well as reviewing legislation and other government initiatives in the sector (Meredith 1993). Since that time, there have been a number of other major parliamentary or government reviews and inquiries. In March 1988, the newly-appointed federal Minister for Small Business requested the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology to conduct an inquiry into the problems faced by small firms and the impact of government policies on them. The resultant Small Business in Australia: Challenges, Problems and Opportunities (1990) (also known as the Beddall report) undertook what it claimed to be the first parliamentary enquiry ever into SMEs, and produced a wide range of suggestions for reform covering regulation review, competition policy, education and training, taxation, finance, franchising and corporate structures, amongst other things. There were also other significant inquiries. In the mid-1990s, the Prime Minister commissioned an external review by a Small Business Deregulation Taskforce, who issued Time for Business (1996) and recommended a number of changes in the regulatory compliance framework for SMEs. In 1997, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology delivered Finding A Balance: Towards Fair Trading in Australia, which examined imbalances in relationships between small and big firms in the areas of commercial tenancy, franchising and other fields. A few years later, the federal Senate conducted its own review of The Effectiveness of the Trade Practices Act In Protecting Small Business (2004), which suggested several substantial reforms in the application of competition law to small enterprises. In 2008, the federal Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services reviewed the status of franchising regulation in Australia, and in its report (Opportunity Not Opportunism: Improving Conduct in Australian Franchising) (2008) argued that the legal framework for franchising regulation needed several changes. Since the demise of the National Small Business Bureau, there has never been a Commonwealth department dedicated solely to small business matters, although there has been a small permanent source of public service expertise housed in various departments from time to time; during the 1990s the Commonwealth also published an Annual Review of Small Business (Department of Workplace Relations and Small Business 1997) which provided an overview of its activities in the sector.

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However, the perceived policy importance of the sector has slowly grown over time, and has been reflected in a number of changes to the most senior machinery of government. For example, the first Minister for Small Business at a federal level was appointed in January 1988 (Parliamentary Handbook of the Commonwealth of Australia 2008), whilst similar portfolios at the state level also appeared in different jurisdictions throughout the 1980s. Small business-specific legislation has been a relatively rare phenomenon in Australian lawmaking. Although numerous Acts produced by the various state, territory and federal Parliaments have made reference to small business in one way or another, this has usually been an incidental outcome relating to more generalised business regulatory and compliance regimes. There have been only a small number of laws specifically written for the small business sector. At the Commonwealth level, there were some business regulations enacted to facilitate the work of the NSBB in the early 1970’s, and in the mid-1980s an attempt was made to introduce uniform national franchise laws (Attorney-General’s Department 1986). Whilst this did not ultimately come to fruition, more successful amendments were made to the Trade Practices Act (1974)3 to make explicit provision for collective bargaining by small businesses (in 2006), introduce a mandatory regulatory framework for franchising (the Franchising Code of Conduct, 1998), and (in 2008) to require the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to have a deputy chairperson with specific expertise in SME issues. Another statute, the Independent Contractors Act (2006), was enacted to protect independent contractors (mainly self-employed persons) by preventing interference with the terms of genuine contracting arrangements. At the state level, several legislative initiatives have been undertaken, focusing on small business representation, financial support, dispute resolution and development programmes. Almost every Australian state and territory, with the exception of Tasmania and the Northern Territory, enacted SME-specific statutes during the period 1970-2010. NSW was highly active in small business issues in the 1970s. In 1976 the state government established a Small Business Development Council to promote SMEs and advise government (Small Business Development Council of New South Wales 1977). It also enacted a Small Businesses’ Loans Guarantee Act in 1977 to allow government to provide a guarantee to banks, building societies and credit unions on behalf of a small enterprise seeking to access finance. Several years later, the Small Business Development Corporation Act (1984) subsumed the Development Council and created a body that was charged with developing and evaluating small business policy, providing advice to government, and recommending ways in which government programs for the SME sector could be improved. In 1980, the Queensland state Parliament enacted the Small Business Development Corporation Act, the objective of which was to “assist, encourage and promote the efficiency and expansion of small business activity in Queensland with a view to enhancing economic growth and employment opportunities and for the public benefit” [section 1.3]. It was replaced with an updated Queensland Small Business Corporation Act (1990), which was repealed in 1996 when its functions were merged with another state government economic agency.

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This Act was renamed the Competition and Consumer Act (2010) with effect from 1st January 2011.

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The longest-running specific SME government agency created in Australia has been the Small Business Development Corporation (SBDC) of Western Australia, a statutory body established under the Small Business Development Corporation Act of 1983. As the preamble to the Act stated, the legislation was designed to “…encourage, promote, facilitate and assist the establishment, development, and carrying on of small business in the State.” The SBDC commenced activities in 1984, with a focus on providing information, advice and support to small businesses, and policy advice and implementation to government. Over the years that remit has seen the SBDC variously involved in funding support to the various Business Enterprise Centres/Small Business Centres in the state, facilitation of business migration programs, and the development of specialist support to particular groups of business operators, such as Indigenous entrepreneurs. Like NSW, Western Australia also introduced legislation for small business loan guarantees, under a Small Business Guarantees Act (1984), which was finally repealed in 2004. The South Australian government also established a small business body under its own Small Business Corporation of South Australia Act (1984). Like its counterparts in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia, the Corporation provided direct advice to small business operators, education and training services to the sector, and policy input to government. The Corporation was wound up, and the Act repealed, in 1995. Almost two decades later, the Victorian Parliament enacted a substantially different model of legislated agency support for SMEs. Rather than establishing a corporation overseen by a board, Victoria created the nation’s first formal Small Business Commissioner – a dedicated statutory officer working within government to assist the sector. Whilst South Australia had previously experimented with a somewhat-similar sounding Small Business Advocate position from 1997-2009 (Sinkunas 2012), that position had been limited in scope and was not defined in statute. Under the Small Business Commissioner Act 2003, the Victorian Commissioner had the function of promoting a free and fair trading environment, advising government on matters affecting small firms, and providing a mediation service for the settlement of business-to-business disputes, with a special focus on retail tenancy issues. A similar position was created shortly afterwards in the Australian Capital Territory under its Small Business Commissioner Act 2004. This Small Business Commissioner likewise was responsible for the provision of advice and review of policy to government; introduction of a business mediation service; and the introduction of small business service charters within other government agencies. However, it ceased operating in 2006 when the Territory government decided to eliminate several statutory offices and departments as a budget-saving measure. Despite this setback, the Commissioner model began to develop wide appeal: by the end of 2010, both the Western Australian and South Australian Parliaments were debating similar initiatives (the Small Business and Retail Shop Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 and the Small Business Commissioner Bill 2011 respectively). Government Assistance Programs Specific government schemes to assist small firms have been many and varied over the last forty years. Notable programmes have included the establishment of small business advisory centres (typically labelled as Business Enterprise Centres), income assistance for unemployed persons starting their own business venture (the New Enterprise Incentive Scheme), loan guarantees for firms seeking additional finance, and business incubators. Many of these

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schemes were initially based on models introduced overseas (such as the United Kingdom), although over time they have been amended and adapted to suit the Australian context. Business Enterprise Centres were originally conceived of as points of contact through which prospective new business startups, or existing business operators, could work with a facilitator to develop their business idea (Sirolli 1995). The first BECs were introduced and funded by the West Australian state government in 1987, and subsequently also adopted by other state governments. Substantial assistance in developing and promoting the concept was also provided by a private sector support group, Business in the Community, and drew much of its inspiration from existing enterprise agency models in the United Kingdom (Mercer 2011; Webb 2011). Different regions used different nomenclature, structure and funding models to support such endeavours, although over time some common elements emerged: centres usually offered free advice to new and current firms, acted as a gateway to business services offered by local, state and federal government, and often also offered additional assistance. In 2008, the federal government also began to provide some funding to a number of these centres, marking the development of a shared state-federal involvement in the provision of such advice. By 2010, there were approximately 130 such centres, known variously as Small Business Centres, BECs, enterprise centres, or other similar titles, across the nation. The federally-funded New Enterprise Incentive Scheme was derived from pre-existing French (Chomeurs Createurs) and British (Enterprise Allowance Scheme) programmes geared at moving the unemployed into self-employment. It allowed eligible participants with a business idea to receive unemployment benefits for up to a year whilst they started their venture, and began operating in 1986; it was still continuing in 2010. Similar schemes, such as Queensland’s Self Employment Venture Schemes (Fisher 1993), also operated at the state level for a few years in the 1980s. Business incubators were another form of assistance that received substantial government support, especially during the 1980s and 1990s. The provision of dedicated business premises, in which fledging new firms could rent space at a low cost during their early formative years whilst also receiving advice and support from a business manager, were seen as a particularly useful tool in fostering the growth of firms which might eventually graduate into much larger enterprises. The first incubators appeared in the early 1980s, and were initially fostered by territory and state governments (Australia and New Zealand Association of Business Incubators 2004). This was eventually followed by a much greater measure of assistance from the federal government, which led to a rapid expansion in incubator numbers. By 1996, there were 49 incubators across the country; this then grew to almost one hundred in 2005 before tapering off and declining somewhat in subsequent years (Schaper & Lewer 2010). Representative Organisations and Small Business Associations Australia has long had a wide variety of different organisations that represent various business interests. These have included peak industry groups, local and regional chambers of commerce, and industry-specific representative associations. However, in 1970 there were no SME-specific advocacy groups, and by 2010 there were still only a small number of such bodies.

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A national peak body of small business industry groups, the Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia (COSBOA), was founded in 1977 (Retail Confectionery and Mixed Business Association of Victoria 1977, 1978). From the outset COSBOA had a strong focus on advocacy, policy reform and public representation on behalf of small firms, and aimed to have an input into the processes and deliberations of government. Originally a loose gathering of interested business associations, it adopted a more formal structure when it incorporated in 1985. By 2010, COSBOA had some eighteen member affiliate bodies, who represented a wide range of different industry sectors (COSBOA 2011). Whilst COSBOA has survived, other lobby groups have not. The Australian Small Business Association, for example, was formed in 1983 as a non-partisan forum and lobby group, advocating the development of small business policies to government (Meredith 1993). However, by the 1990s it had ceased to exist. In 1983, the Franchise Council of Australia (FCA) was established to represent the interests of both franchisees and franchisors, and to act as the peak body of the franchising sector (FCA 2011). The late 1980s also saw the establishment of a number of small business incubators, which in turn lead to the creation of the Australia and New Zealand Association of Business Incubators (ANZABI). Despite the name, most of ANZABI’s membership was actually drawn from Australia, and in 2004 it was renamed Business Innovation and Incubation Australia (BIIA). By mid-2009, BIIA’s membership represented almost half of all incubator centres in the country (Schaper & Lewer 2010). In 1999, the growing number of state-government funded small business advisory centres came together to form Business Enterprise Centres Australia (Australian Institute of Enterprise Facilitators 2010). BEC Australia was designed to provide a common voice and co-ordinating role for the many BECs operating across the country, each of which existed as a separate legal entity with its own board of management. The development of a common logo and branding, information sharing and skills development were, and continue to remain, core objectives of the national body. Self-employed individuals gained their own representative body much later, with the formation of the Independent Contractors of Australia (ICA) in 2001. ICA was created to educate contractors, allow them to develop networks of common interest, and to lobby government on laws and regulations affecting its members (ICA 2011). Education, Training and Research Whilst education and training is today recognised as an important tool in SME development, this has not always been the case. In 1970, there were few, if any, small business programs on offer within Australian higher education or technical and further education institutions. Whilst the Wiltshire Committee in 1971 clearly identified a future role for educational bodies in improving SME skills and offering training, there appeared to be only a handful of such courses available at the time. Indeed, the first identifiable program of small firm studies within the university sector appears to have been that developed by Geoffrey Meredith at the University of New England, in northern regional New South Wales, in the mid-1970s.

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Small business education and training began to receive substantial attention in the early 1980s. In 1981, Bailey and Royston published a national survey of SME education on behalf of the National Training Council, which suggested that the number of individual units, or whole programs of study, about small business were quite limited in number. They advocated the introduction of small business courses at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels (Bailey & Royston 1981). The following year, the Ralph Committee of enquiry into management education in Australia endorsed the preceding report, and recommended that tertiary institutions introduce units in small business management (Inquiry into Management Report 1982). This sentiment was supported by the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission’s review of small business training needs, who also argued that degree courses should include units in SME management (CTEC 1984). The first academic conferences dedicated to small business appear to have been those held by the Institute of Industrial Economics at the University of Newcastle. In 1980 the Institute hosted a gathering on “small business development,” and in 1982 began the first of a series of regular national small business conferences that were subsequently held in a variety of different cities throughout the 1980s (Lamb, Dunlop & Sheehan 1980; Dunlop & Gordon 1984). A formal association of small business and entrepreneurship researchers, educators and policymakers took shape in 1987, with the foundation of the Small Enterprise Association of Australia and New Zealand (SEAANZ). Based on a number of active academic researchers, along with a smaller number of members drawn from government, business development organisations and other kindred bodies, SEAANZ held its first conference in conjunction with the Institute of Industrial Economics in Melbourne in 1988. Conferences have since been held on an annual basis at various Australian and New Zealand cities. The association began publishing a journal, Small Enterprise Research, in 1992, and thus established the nation’s first peer-reviewed academic research publication in the discipline (SEAANZ 2008). In the same year it became affiliated to the global body representing researchers, educators and policymakers, the International Council for Small Business (ICSB) (Brockhaus 2005)4. Since that time a number of Australians have held the ICSB presidency, and SEAANZ has played host to the ICSB world conference on three separate occasions: in Sydney (1995), Brisbane (2000) and Melbourne (2006) (SEAANZ 2008). After the federal government commissioned a substantial review of management education in Australia, the resultant Industry Task Force on Leadership and Management Skills (1995) noted the emerging importance of small business counselling services and recommended that a formal system of training and accreditation be developed for such advisers. This resulted in the creation of the Australian Institute of Enterprise Facilitators in 1997, a national body aimed specifically at small business advisers, consultants, trainers, counsellors and facilitators (AIEF 2010). The number of degree courses grew substantially during the 1980s and 1990s. Whilst few institutions had offered small business studies in the 1970s, by 2005 almost all universities were offering something. A review of course and program offerings (Chan 2005) found that 8 of the country’s 39 universities were offering degree specialisations in small business or entrepreneurship, another 13 were offering individual units within degrees, and 11 were 4

Interestingly, in 1987 ICSB rejected an application by COSBOA to become the local Australian affiliate (Brockhaus 2005).

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offering postgraduate studies in the area; only seven institutions did not appear to offer any units. Conclusion As the above chronicle indicates, there has been a vast change in Australia’s small business sector over the last forty years. Not only has the sector grown dramatically in size; but just as importantly, it has also grown in perceived importance. Where once it was seen as a peripheral or non-important sector of the economy, it is now treated with a great deal more attention. This has been most clearly reflected in the growth of services dedicated to small enterprises: in the increased activities of both state and federal governments, as well as the establishment of industry representative bodies, education and research associations, and related areas. In 1970, there was little specific support for, or knowledge of, small business. By 2010, much more was known about SMEs, and there was a wide range of both government and private support for small enterprises. There have also been some clearly discernible trends over the last forty years. For example, in many areas of service provision, it has been the state and territory governments which have provided the initial impetus and support, and the federal government has only become involved after such schemes have become well established. This pattern was the case for business enterprise centres, incubators and self-employment schemes for the unemployed. But it has not always been a one-way street: the federal National Small Business Bureau in the 1970s can be seen as an early precursor to the many state-based SME development corporations that arose in the 1980s. Australia’s experience in SME issues has often also mirrored similar trends in other countries. The Wiltshire Report, for example, appeared at about the same time as similar enquiries in other countries, such as the Bolton Report in the United Kingdom (1971) and the Miliaret Report in France (1973). Many local policy ideas have also been drawn from abroad. The business enterprise centre network has its origin in the local enterprise agency system that appeared in the UK in the late 1970s, whilst the New Enterprise Incentive Scheme was based on French and British models. Indeed, Casson (2011) has noted that most Western nations experienced a similar surge of interest in the notion of the so-called “enterprise culture” in the 1980s and 1990s, which in turn sparked an increased public policy interest in SMEs. On the other hand, recent years have also seen the emergence of some distinctively Australian approaches to SME issues, such as the creation of Small Business Commissioners. There is, arguably, still much more that can be done to assist small firms – but as the historical record indicates, it is worth noting just how far the sector has already travelled over recent decades. A better understanding of what has previously occurred, how and when, can help ensure that future activities to further develop small business are effective. If the small business community is not aware of its history, there is always a risk of repeating the errors of the past, ignoring the lessons of previous endeavours, or of neglecting the many considerable achievements so far accomplished. References

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