Critical budget for business

By Heidi Cooper

Queensland businesses must be front and centre of next month’s state budget to deal with the mounting pressure being experienced by the business community through escalating costs, weak productivity, heavy regulatory burden and poor forward economic confidence.

The pressures businesses are facing cannot be ignored, or managed with short-term measures.  There is an urgent need for a long-term strategy to improve the Queensland business operating environment, drive productivity and ensure long-term business and economic confidence.

We’ve listened to Queensland businesses and we’re now calling for measures and interventions that alleviate day-to-day business pressures and prepare businesses for long-term growth viability and sustainability.

Right now, we’re seeing a stretched and stressed business community in Queensland.

Persistent daily pressures like record high operating and labour costs and ongoing workforce challenges as well as restrictive regulatory and employment environments are compounding on businesses and making it hard to do business.

The result is weak confidence in the future of the state and national economies, decreasing business investment and capital expenditure, stagnate productivity and weak profitability.

We haven’t seen some of these pressures since the depths of the COVID crisis, or even the global financial crisis.

This budget is an opportunity for the Queensland Government to put businesses at the centre of their investment decisions, to support businesses with ongoing day-to-day challenges and set the agenda for future prosperity, increased productivity and economic growth.

Our state budget priorities were developed using direct business insights, decades of business data and research and direct engagement with the state’s business community.

Through this engagement with business, we know what businesses need to manage day-to-day pressures and they also want to plan for long-term productivity and growth.

Business knows business best, and we’ve captured the highest business priorities for now and in the future, the outcomes businesses will be looking to the government to deliver in this budget.

At the centre of these priorities, we’re calling for budget investments to reduce regulatory burden, provide operating cost relief, reduce payment timeframes to make it easier to do business with government and support for employers to grow their workforces.

At the same time, we are calling on the Queensland Government to encourage investment and growth in all sectors so every business across every part of our state has the opportunity to thrive over the next decade and beyond.

The risk of missed opportunity in Queensland in the lead up to and beyond 2032 is significant.

Together with the state’s business community, we are looking to next month’s Queensland budget to get the fundamentals right, to provide the critical measures needed for businesses to manage today and ensure we have the best business and investment environment so businesses can plan for the future.