All News

Big business ‘leaders’, such as the Business Council of Australia for example, have for many months been openly expressing their worry that they are failing to influence public policy.

It’s not such a surprise. Australia’s big business leaders have for some time openly and through political backdoors been trying to kill off important economic reforms that make for a better Australian economy.  More...

A very big Season’s Greetings to all ICA members, supporters, friends and contributors—of which there are many! 2016 has been an impressive year in terms of achieving positive outcomes for self-employed people.  More...

Readers may have noticed the somewhat messy outcome with the Federal Government’s ABCC legislation last week. The key killer is that the associated federal construction code will not have application for two years. That means that big construction firms will have two years to continue to collude with unions to screw over small business construction subcontractors.  Here’s commentary from Judith Sloan in The Australian showing why it’s a mess.
 
But riding in from the West is a different player! More...

Not one for mincing his words, ICA's Executive Director, Ken Phillips, had this to say in an urgent mass email sent out today: More...

According to ICA Executive Director Ken Phillips, the Turnbull government is setting itself up for policy and political failure. This is because of the way the government has responded to the report by Justice Heydon into union corruption released last week.

Justice Heydon’s report details widespread corruption in unions and businesses. Yet the Turnbull government’s almost gleeful response hammers only unions. This response reflects political stupidity. It has opened itself to a campaign which suggests  that the Coalition is anti-worker and runs a political protection racket for corrupt employers. More...

This week, in Business Spectator, ICA Executive Director Ken Phillips wrote about a ‘mystery’ box that arrived in the post for him some years ago. It contained the true financial records of a major trade union. The records differed from the union’s publicly declared accounts. The point of Ken's article is that full transparency and disclosure should be imposed on the big superannuation funds or we could see corruption scandals in superannuation similar to those we are seeing with unions.  More...

Yesterday afternoon, the new Small Business Minister Kelly O’Dwyer announced that the Turnbull government would accept the Senate's amendments to the ‘unfair contracts protections’ Bill for small business people.

ICA is DELIGHTED!  More...

Against all predictions, the UK Conservatives won government at the May 2015 election—and strongly. We can surmise that part of their win resulted from the big shift to self-employment that is happening in the UK. In fact, self-employment has accounted for all UK jobs growth over the last four years.

Even the new UK Labour leader, the openly socialist Jeremy Corbyn, is courting self-employed people. That’s a surprise! But a bigger surprise comes from the Conservative’s Justice Secretary, Michael Gove, who at this week’s Tory Conference attacked the ‘undeserving’ rich! What’s going on? More...

On Tuesday we noted how, on Monday morning, the Senate saved the Unfair Contracts Bill from the Abbott government's neutering of it. Of course, on Monday night Tony Abbott was deposed and now Malcolm Turnbull is Prime Minister.

ICA Executive Director Ken Phillips provided a fuller rundown of events in the Senate in Business Spectator. The article is here. More...

What an extraordinary day yesterday. Yes, Tony Abbott has gone as Prime Minister.

But what you probably don’t know is how, in the morning, the Senate rescued small business people. The Senate amended the Unfair Contracts Bill by lifting the $100,000 contract limit where the protections were to stop, to $300,000. This means that huge numbers of additional small business people should now have access to the unfair contract protections. We thank the Senate and Senators. More...