Does Albo get SMEs?
SmartCompany
SmartCompany fights for, champions and scrutinises Australian SMEs, entrepreneurs and startups.
Happy Saturday!
Does the government understand small business? Is the Prime Minister a champion of the sector?
In the wake of negative headlines for Anthony Albanese post the Business Council of Australia’s big annual dinner, SME champion Peter Strong argued that while the PM talks the talk, "in reality… he has never been interested in small business as a policy subject”.
Is the government doing enough to help struggling SMEs? The future of popular paint-and-sip business Pinot & Picasso is uncertain this weekend after its master franchisor entered voluntary administration.
In a week that saw health-tech startup Kismet adding another $20 million to its seed funding round, we ran a health special, and – in the wake of news that Amazon will order staff back to the office five days a week – we unpicked a global survey showing Australian employees are an outlier regarding remote work privileges, with 32% of Aussie workers able to choose where they work, compared to 23% worldwide.
And we saw major AI announcements at a couple of big conferences in the USA this week: we’ll have more on what the rise of AI agents means for your business next week.
See you then!
Simon Crerar
Editor in chief, SmartCompany