Labour fails to impress small business
Simon Power MP
National Party Commerce Spokesman
20 December 2006
Labour fails to impress small business
The Minister for Small Business, Lianne Dalziel, has her head in the sand if she thinks a small improvement in the Small Business Advisory Group's rating of the Government's performance is good news, says National's Commerce spokesman, Simon Power.
He is commenting after it was announced that the Small Business Advisory Group had given the Government's performance a rating of 5.8 out of 10, up from 5.3 in February.
"Lianne Dalziel is dreaming if she thinks a rating increase of 0.5 is something to crow about.
"The Small Business Advisory Group still has big concerns around the Holidays Act, employment law, and the HSNO Act.
"The Government has ignored those concerns.
"The advisory group also rejects Lianne Dalziel's assertion that the Holidays Act is 'fundamentally sound' legislation.
"It is also very interesting that she has replaced all advisory group members, losing a lot of institutional knowledge.
"Perhaps she has not been happy with the advice and the grades they have been giving her.
"Lianne Dalziel said in response to the February report that her role was 'ensuring the business environment motivates and enables all our SMEs to achieve their full potential', but so far they clearly do not rate her performance very highly."
ENDS