“ACT’s SME plan to jumpstart the economy will put the emphasis on job creation and give SMEs the confidence to hire new staff,” says ACT’s SME spokesperson Chris Baillie.

“Businesses have spent three years having red tape and costs piled on by a Government that doesn’t understand business.

“As one of the seven business owners in ACT’s top 10 line up, I understand the pressures that business owners are under and how to create sensible, practical policies which support them.

“As we navigate through the fallout of Covid-19, ACT believes we should choose a low tax, low debt, high growth strategy led by private enterprise.

For the economy to recover from high unemployment, one Kiwi will have to offer another Kiwi a job, hundreds of thousands of times over the coming years. To do that employers need to be able to take risks without Government holding them back.”

As part of our SME package, ACT will:

• Put a three-year moratorium on increasing the minimum wage
• Reinstate 90-day trials for all businesses
• Streamline the employee personal grievance process

“Increasing the minimum wage while the economy is in recession will put a handbrake on business growth and the creation of new jobs. It’s the last thing we need while we’re in a recession.

“We’ll reinstate 90-day trials to reduce risks for employers and create more jobs. These trials allow businesses to take a chance on workers they wouldn’t otherwise. Young or low-skilled workers, or people who have been out work, have the most to gain from being employed on a trial basis.

“We’ll also simplify the personal grievance process while not losing the principle of fairness. We’ll ensure easily understood information on personal grievance responsibilities under the Employment Act is readily available to SME owners at minimal or no cost such that they do not have to resort to expensive legal advice.

“Business owners take a risk whenever they employ someone and we want to minimise that as much as possible. We should be doing everything we can to create jobs and ACT will support business owners to make that happen.”

ACT's SME policy can be found here

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