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This was published 13 years ago
Full hit of GFC on Australian business revealed
By Chalpat Sonti
Just how badly, or well, businesses survived the global financial crisis and other economic turmoil of the past two years is evident from new official figures.
Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows in the two years from June 2007 - encompassing the boom and subsequent bust - more than 638,000 Australian businesses shut up shop.
The global financial crisis left a wake of destruction through the world economy, and Australia was not immune.
Nationwide, there was a 26.4 per cent failure rate in the two years.
About 615,000 businesses started up in the period, meaning the total number of businesses fell about 23,000 to 2.05 million. Most of the net loss, about 20,700, occurred in 2008-09.
It is the first period since the ABS began collecting the data in 2003 that the number of businesses fell.
But despite the GFC happening in the middle of the survey period, there was a surprising decrease in attrition rates - from 15.4 per cent to 13.1 per cent - between the 2007-08 and 2008-09 financial years.
In the four years to 2007, while the failure rates remained between 14 and 16 per cent, the number of new businesses increased at a greater rate. The 14.4 per cent more start-ups in 2008-09 was the lowest level in the six years.
Business failures varied across the states, with rates slightly higher in the boom states of WA and Queensland.
In WA, about 57,000 businesses with an ABN and registered for GST, including 10,100 new businesses, were forced to the wall over the two years surveyed.
That is an attrition rate of 26.9 per cent of all new businesses in the period.
In NSW, there were 185,000 fewer businesses in 2009 than two years earlier, an attrition rate of 26.6 per cent, while Victoria lost 133,000, or 25.7 per cent, of its trading enterprises.
Queensland had 117,000 fewer businesses, a drop of 27.7 per cent
Nationally, the public administration and safety sector was the worst performer, with a survival rate of 65.3 per cent. The mining industry saw a 76.5 per cent survival rate, while health care and social assistance did best, at 81.2 per cent.
However, the figures for small business told a different tale.
The number of businesses with up to 20 employees fell 24,931 nationally in the period, with more than 80 per cent, or 20,000, of the fall occurring during the worst of the financial crisis, in 2008-09.
Most of the fall was in businesses employing between one and four people.
But federal shadow parliamentary secretary for small business Scott Ryan said the national drop in small business numbers was worrying on other future fronts.
"Small business is the economy's canary, a key leading indicator," Mr Ryan said.
"The [federal] Labor government's stubborn intention to saddle small business with extra costs such as the superannuation levy increase and the paperwork burden of being a 'pay clerk' for [a] flawed parental scheme will only ensure this worrying trend worsens in coming years."
Meanwhile shadow small business minister Bruce Billson has confirmed his intention to introduce a private member's bill under which Centrelink would take over the running of the government's proposed parental leave scheme.
As it stands, Centrelink will fulfil that role for the first six months of the scheme, before the responsibility for much of the scheme falls to employers.
They will be required to distribute the payments under the scheme to staff, after being forwarded the money by Centrelink.
"Despite strong objection from every corner of this continent, from Gladstone to Esperance and from every organisation that has any concern whatsoever about the compliance and red tape obligations on businesses large and small, the government seems to steadfastly want to persist in imposing this pay clerk obligation ... on employers, despite the fact that it has offered no compelling reason for doing so," Mr Billson told Parliament on Wednesday night.
He will need the support of independents or the Greens to make the changes to the scheme, due to start at the beginning of next year.
It will see eligible parents receive the minimum wage of $569.90 a week for 18 weeks.
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