Originally published in the Canberra Times.

By Bruce Billson.

Australians value enterprise. We respect people who back themselves, take risks and build something of their own, and provides opportunities and livelihoods for others.

Small business is not a niche interest. It is central to economic dynamism, productivity, living standards, competition, innovation and the strength and vitality of local communities. Yet for many owners, running a small business has become harder than it needs to be.

The challenge isn't a lack of effort or ambition. It's the growing complexity of operating in an environment where rules, processes and expectations continue to accumulate, often without enough attention to how they interact in practice. As the operating environment grows more complex, headwinds are many and costs of getting things wrong keeps rising.

Starting a business isn't easy but rarely the hardest part. Keeping up, trying to grow, adopting new technology and managing obligations is where many businesses begin to feel the strain. For the business owner, the passion and purpose that motivated and was the driving force at the outset can be as strong as ever - but "the business of running the business" can take a heavy toll.

Taken individually, most requirements appear reasonable. Taken together, they can become burdensome - particularly for businesses without specialist staff or spare capacity.

That's why access to information alone doesn't solve the problem. Small business owners can usually find the rules. The struggle is knowing when those rules change, and what those changes mean for their business in practice. The question a small business owner wants answered is, "What do I have to do now?"

Well-intended portals or longer guidance notes may miss the mark. Clearer signals, practical examples and a system that is easier to navigate is what is needed. Actionable information found easily is the key.

Surveys consistently show regulation and compliance are among the biggest pressures on small businesses, absorbing time and resources that would otherwise be spent competing, investing, growing and finding and delighting customers.

This matters most when businesses are trying to grow - whether that's taking on staff, investing in technology, expanding into new markets. Growth strengthens competition and productivity. But growth also brings added complexity and risk, especially when expectations are unclear or constantly shifting.

Technology highlights this tension. Digital tools and artificial intelligence offer real opportunities to lift productivity, secure operational efficiencies and improve customer service. For small businesses, the potential is genuine - but so is the real challenge of working out what technologies to adopt, how to use them well to best support and advance business strategies and objectives and how to keep pace as things evolve.

Small businesses don't want hype. They want confidence that trying to improve won't create unintended problems or new compliance headaches.

One reality is often overlooked in these discussions - complexity doesn't affect all businesses equally.

Larger organisations are better placed to absorb it. They have systems, specialist advisers, dedicated teams and resources ready to deploy. Small businesses manage complexity personally, often after hours and at their own expense.

This is why it is essential to adopt a "small business first" mindset and approach to policy development, program design and regulatory imposition. Not as special treatment, but a better way to form and test decisions and regulations for their likely impact and results.

It is also practical economics. If we as a nation hope to benefit fully from the economic dynamism, productivity enhancements, living standards benefits, livelihoods creation and community vitality enabled by prosperous small businesses, the policy, regulatory and trading environment needs to offer conditions that support smaller firms to thrive.

It is about having small business front of mind, firmly factored into the decisions we make and conditions we create. Without it, dominant interests and detached analysis will prevail, and this advantages big, entrenched, well-resourced and powerful incumbents.

The gravitational pull of already powerful players will see them and their well-resourced lobbies seize each new opportunity, disruption, technological change or economic transformation as a new avenue to harness, shape in their interest and exploit to further entrench their dominance.

The misguided belief that not focusing on small business is somehow a more neutral approach to policy in fact amounts to furthering the advantage of the already advantaged.

An overburdensome and complex regulatory requirement that falsely imagines a small business is a 'shrink wrapped' version of a big corporate simply advantages the well-resourced big end of town.

Consultation processes that demand substantial submissions in short windows of time will inevitably assist the biggest voices. Compliance requirements that are vague or principles-based, requiring specialists or consultants to interpret and implement, can be daunting and overwhelming for smaller respondents. Procurement and supply chain requirements that involve enormous disclosure requirements, system changes and additional expenditure just to bid, are hardly invitations to smaller firms to drive competition, innovation and value via a genuine opportunity to win work as a supplier. Government programs that require participants to already have scale and shopping lists of pre-participation requirements will count out many small businesses.

Small businesses succeed by competing, innovating and serving customers. When complexity grows unchecked, it can unintentionally favour scale and make it harder for smaller operators to compete on their merits. Rather than 'merit', complexity rewards economic mass and muscle.

Supporting small businesses to thrive does not create rent seekers.

Ignoring or being inattentive to small business needs, capacities and circumstances, damages and disadvantages smaller enterprises. It deals an advantaged hand to bigger businesses and dominant interests, even if not intended, as a result of poor policy design and overbearing regulation.

Critics who frame a "small business first" mindset and approach as rent-seeking often overlook the real issue: complexity is the real subsidy. Complexity overwhelmingly favours those already big enough to manage it and impedes the less well resourced.

When competition weakens, productivity suffers. And when productivity stalls, the whole economy, our community and citizens feel it.

Productivity reform starts with small business. Gains are secured in the workplace, and the vast majority of our workplaces are small businesses. A simple test of any system is whether it works for the smallest businesses expected to comply with it.

If we want a more competitive, more productive and more resilient economy, we need systems that work for the businesses doing the day-to-day work of employing people, delighting customers and investing in their communities.

That doesn't mean lowering standards or cutting corners. It means being disciplined about complexity, clearer about expectations, and more conscious of how decisions play out in the real world. It's about reasonableness and "right-sizing" for small business.

Small businesses don't ask for favours. They ask for a fair chance to compete.

Small businesses don't need a leg up - they need a system that works. When systems work for small businesses, they tend to work better for everyone else too. What it takes is a clear and enduring commitment to a "small business-first" mindset and approach.