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Having lived in Melbourne all my life, I’m ‘picking up’ that this Melbourne Covid-19 deep lockdown has induced fear. Fear is in the Melbourne air.

Yes, it’s fear of the virus. But it’s also fear of continuing incompetence by the Dan Andrews government. The incompetence has led to the Stage 4 lockdown. This is not a party political comment. Labor governments in Western Australia and Queensland have so far successfully and impressively contained the spread of Covid-19.  More...

Last week (22 July) the Morrison government announced that JobKeeper and JobSeeker are being extended past the current cut-off of at the end of September. But there are changes to eligibility and the amounts being paid.

We’ve waited a week to produce this update to check some details with the ATO. Be aware that the legislation for the extension has not passed Parliament, so our summary below is the best information available at the moment. More...

Last week we reported on Victorian Premier Dan Andrews’ agenda to make being your own boss illegal. Now’s there’s more evidence.

With the second big lockdown being imposed in Melbourne, Chairman Dan (as the cartoonists like to show him) has offered support packages for small businesses. But it’s not available for self-employed people. It’s discriminatory. Many are suffering according to this ABC report and will go broke because of this second lockdown. More...

The Senate is currently considering a Bill that will require large businesses to report their payments to small business suppliers. Being paid on time is a top priority for all self-employed small business people.

We gave evidence to the Senate last week (8 July) and made the following points.

We expect the Morrison government to fully implement its election promise on pay-on-time issues. This is a three-phase promise it made, namely: More...

Last week, we reported the release by the ATO of threats to treat people who’ve accessed JobKeeper (and other programs) of being tax fraudsters. The problem, we say, is the ability of the ATO’s auditors to apply their ‘view’ as to fraud, which then becomes ‘fact’ at law, subject to prosecution. And the only effective appeal is to the ATO itself!!  More...

We can’t believe that, for all the great work the ATO has done with implementing the Covid-19 support packages, it's decided to blow up that good work.

Last week (23 June) the ATO released a statement ‘ATO zeroes in on COVID-19 fraud’. The ATO has declared that it reckons lots of Australians are committing fraud in applying for Covid-19 support (JobKeeper, Cash Flow Boost, early release of super, etc.) But look at what they are targeting. More...

The anti-Trump forces in the USA have just suffered a surprise defeat in a Californian bye-election that has likely implications for the November US Presidential election.

The Democrats suffered a massive backlash against them because of vicious anti-small business laws that have crushed the self-employed small business sector in California. More...

Late yesterday evening the government released its third and largest Coronavirus financial support package. It’s huge. And self-employed, sole traders are included.

We’ve updated our summary of the government's Coronavirus support package for self-employed people. Here’s the updated summary. More...

This is to give you an update on the support package available for self-employed, small business people, particularly if you are a sole trader.

On Monday we released this summary which has generated very high Internet traffic.  More...

We’ve been pretty quiet during January on issuing news alerts. That’s because we’ve been doing a lot of behind-the-scenes preparation for 2020. This year we’re making a big push for key reform issues for self-employed small business people. The timing is right because there is heightened political interest in small business issues.

Our 2020 campaign agenda has three key targets, all to do with small business people receiving a fair deal: More...