A speech by John Price, Commissioner, Australian Securities and Investments Commission to the聽Law Council of Australia and the Law Society of NSW SME Business Law Conference (Sydney, Australia) on聽1 September 2017
Introduction
Thank you for the opportunity to speak at today鈥檚 conference. I am John Price, ob体育鈥檚 lead commissioner for small business.
Small and medium enterprises make a significant contribution to the Australian economy. They account for 99.8% of all businesses registered in Australia, and employ almost 70% of our workforce.
Small business is ob体育鈥檚 largest customer. Over 90% of the Australian companies and businesses registered with ob体育 are small businesses with fewer than 20 employees. Small business alone employs half of Australia鈥檚 workforce and makes up one-fifth of our gross domestic product. On the regulatory front, most of ob体育鈥檚 financial services and credit licensees, as well as the users of the products and services provided by those licensees, are also small businesses.
Today I am excited to be able to tell you about ob体育鈥檚 new Office of Small Business, and its work so far. I will discuss some improvements to our registry services, and will also take you through some of the resources we have developed in our efforts to support small business, and to show them 鈥榳hat good looks like鈥�. I will touch on the recent proposed changes to the external dispute resolution (EDR) framework, our work with unfair contract terms and our thoughts on the Banking Code of Practice Review. Finally, I will give you an update on our efforts to combat illegal phoenix activity.