Boss Lady I agree with some of the interesting questions you raise, particularly these ones:
"Where is our Government and community focus on the fast growing SMEs? Why are they not a priority sector, given the enormous contribution they make to the creation of jobs, skills and innovative products and services?"
Some would argue that the $42 billion cash helped dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of SMEs around Australia by promoting spending in general. And similarly some would argue that there's no need for a specific government spending/support program. If the statistics can be relied upon Australia has just got through the biggest financial volatility in 70 years and despite not having a specific stimulus, SMEs actually grew.
I support government spending on supporting small companies - I'm not disagreeing with you at all Boss Lady - but if SMEs are growing without spending, there seems little reason to spend in this area.
If we transferred the notion of spending millions or billions to areas in the economy where the industry was doing okay anyway the question is 'would Australian's support a boost in specific stimulus expenditure to help them do even better?' The answer is probably not.
Joe public, the opposition and the media would wonder why the government is spending money on an area that's doing okay anyway and not on areas of the economy that are hurting.
(School halls must be in a pretty dire state huh?)
