Jacinda Ardern talks business with Flow Software

Labour MP Jacinda Ardern talks business with Integration and EDI Specialist Flow Software

Labour Party small business spokesperson and MP Jacinda Ardern sat down to talk business with Flow Software General Manager David Masters at their Albany head office on Tuesday 7 July 2015. The visit is part of Labour’s efforts to connect with business to understand how the government can better support small business and what issues are important to those at the coal face of the market.

Ms Ardern is tasked with fleshing out policy for Labour’s pledge to make small business a priority in the next two years. Flow Software is a business that is firmly established having gone past ‘start-up’ phase and solidified itself as a key market player in the ICT sector. Having cracked the New Zealand and Australian market, it has first-hand experience of existing legislation and is well placed to provide feedback and ideas on how the government has performed and can assist businesses.

Ms Ardern has been out visiting a number of businesses recently “It’s a great opportunity to talk to businesses, listen to them and test some of our policy thinking”.

Mr Masters gave both the previous Labour and current National led governments pass marks for the time the company has been operating “In general terms New Zealand is a country that encourages ease of doing business and has low barriers to starting a business. This isnt to say we can’t do a lot better in specific areas”. Among the topics discussed were access to capital, ways to provide guidance and advice for doing business, the tax system and the government procurement system.

Flow is looking forward to seeing how the business landscape in New Zealand shapes up in the coming years “Jacinda has some very good ideas and I’m interested to see how these will form into policy, its clear she is putting real thought into new ways to assist early stage growth businesses and streamline the compliance regime”

The meeting was a welcome change from the day to day operations of running a business. “As a business we don’t align ourselves with any specific political party, but it was really refreshing to have an MP come out and talk about issues that are relevant to SME businesses. It’s the first time in our 10 year history this has happened. Jacinda or any other MP’s for that matter are welcome back anytime.”

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