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ICA is proud of its efforts over the last seven years arguing for the unfair contract laws for small business people. We’ve said that we’re delighted that the Turnbull government is moving forward with the laws. And we’re thankful to the Senate and to Senators for making sure the laws will have a wide application.  More...

Yesterday afternoon, the new Small Business Minister Kelly O’Dwyer announced that the Turnbull government would accept the Senate's amendments to the ‘unfair contracts protections’ Bill for small business people.

ICA is DELIGHTED!  More...

On Tuesday we noted how, on Monday morning, the Senate saved the Unfair Contracts Bill from the Abbott government's neutering of it. Of course, on Monday night Tony Abbott was deposed and now Malcolm Turnbull is Prime Minister.

ICA Executive Director Ken Phillips provided a fuller rundown of events in the Senate in Business Spectator. The article is here. More...

What an extraordinary day yesterday. Yes, Tony Abbott has gone as Prime Minister.

But what you probably don’t know is how, in the morning, the Senate rescued small business people. The Senate amended the Unfair Contracts Bill by lifting the $100,000 contract limit where the protections were to stop, to $300,000. This means that huge numbers of additional small business people should now have access to the unfair contract protections. We thank the Senate and Senators. More...

The Abbott government has dug itself into another self-damaging hole. This time it’s over the sly con they are conducting against Australia’s small business people by sliding up to big business interests. We exposed this several weeks ago.

But now the underpayment of 7-Eleven employees is being blamed on unfair franchisor contracts. And it’s been the franchisors who’ve been blocking the unfair contract laws. The Abbott government’s deal with the franchisors to con and screw over small business people is backfiring in a spectacular way. More...

Politics works like this. You make big election promises. Then, once in government, appear to deliver the promises. But in the detail kill off the promise. The suckers in the electorate won’t notice!

That’s the situation with the Coalition’s key promise to small business people to extend consumer unfair contract protections to them. We expressed our shock last week.

Grace Collier in The Weekend Australian explained “This bill was supposed to extend some basic rules about commercial contracts (for small businesses) … the government put an exemption in, which pretty much exempts everyone and makes the bill meaningless.” More...

At the end of July 2014, ICA held a highly successful forum with the new key independent Senators, Bob Day and David Leyonhjelm on "The New Independent Balance of Power in the Senate". We’ve put together a 10-minute YouTube video of Bob and David addressing the Forum. You’ll find them both grounded in common sense, reflecting their small business backgrounds with ‘hands on’ experience of the practical issues that affect business success and our community. The video is here. More...

Well, it has taken some doing, but ICA has now made its submission to the Treasury review on the Abbott government’s policy to implement unfair contract protections for small business people.

Our submission is BIG. 16,000 words in fact. But it’s a critically important and fundamental issue.  More...

Small business people lose out under Abbott government. Incompetent big business wins

Last week the Abbott government did two things that signal it as a big business, big union, big government operation. This is probably surprising to most people who thought the Coalition was a union hater. But not so! Full blogpost. More...

Independent Contractors Australia founding President Bob Day  has been elected to the Senate. As of 1 July 2014 he will, along with other independents, have control of the balance of power in the Senate (see Senate composition here.) More...