Under the ALP!A record 7,747 companies hit the wall in the first nine monthsof this financial year, according to last weekend’s Australian paper.
Some 35 years ago, around the same time of the financial year,my wife and I were desperately scrambling to prevent our company fromcollapsing.
Three hundred staff, an asset base of $14m, a full order book ofsmall ship design and builds worth $12m, all approved by the Government’sExport Finance department and an interest rate at the time of 22% for anoverdraft, what could possibly go wrong?
However, the letter from the NAB was clear: The overdraft of $2mwas unacceptable, and we were now on 24 hours' notice to repay, as per the lastline in the overdraft document.
I had helped Minister for Trade John Button a year earlier inpreventing the closure of a Tasmanian shipyard, so I rang him to help unblockthe slow export finance payments and to hold back the bank.
He responded that very afternoon, apologising, that despiteappealing to NAB’s boss, Nobby Clark, the NAB and other banks were into “wholesale slaughter of medium and smallbusiness”.
The next day the undertakers of the banking and financeindustry, Receivers, took the keys, the bank books, the cars, the house and ouroffice buildings. So, our 13 years of efforts came crashing down.
Quite a humbling experience and entirely unnecessary, if thenation had the US Title 11 Bankruptcy re-organisation instead of the archaic UKLiquidation /receivership system.
Three weeks later, we were in a small rental in the suburb ofEagleby, south of Brisbane, with a borrowed ute, four sons at Christian schoolsand a giant golden retriever that ate more than the boys.
Bundling the boys into the back of the ute, my wife reminded methis was illegal.
“What more canthey take from us? They already have the house, the car, the company and allthe assets. “
Then, ALP Prime Minister Keating informed us that this was therecession we had to have. As his ratings were crashing, he was distracting themedia and the public with, “Let'schange the system, get rid of the Australian Flag and the monarchy, let’s havethe recession we have to have and a banana republic!”
“Record Business Collapses” blared thenewspaper headlines at the time.
I knew that well, as many business friends were also swept up. As I stood in the dole queue in Beenleigh every fortnight, they wouldinform me there were no vacancies for ship designers in the Beenleigh area andapprove my dole payment.
Many of my friends abandoned their business dreams and tooksecure government jobs, but as an obstinate Scot, I got back on the horse. Ittook us six years to fully recover, but this time, we stayed away from banks,not even an overdraft, which caught us out last time.
What about the cost of living crisis?
If you want a full immersion povvo, penniless and painfulexperience like the now over 8,000 business families that are going throughreceivership/liquidation this year, just keep endorsing Labor and Greens andthe insane policies that these fickle fools focus on.
Take heed of my words: Keating, Rudd, and Gillard all spiked therise in business collapses. If you don’t believe me, check it out!
However, this Team Albanese with the embedded DNA of ALPstupidity is something else. Between Albo, Bowen, Burke and Wong, if theyhad a brain in their head, it would definitely be a stowaway!
We sang “Our LandAbounds in Nature's Gifts” last week at the Anzac Day services. Most small businesses are not gifted with anything and require long hours and dedication to create something from nothing.
I take my hat off to anyone trying to build their own vision.
Imagine being gifted the Leadership of Australia! A vastisland nation with unimaginable mineral and agricultural wealth and anall-year-round climate for working and living.
What an absolute gift to any vision-oriented leader!
It’s a pretty easy job to implement policies that benefit themajority of Australians, using natural gifts to mine our minerals efficiently,create cheap energy, manufacture goods that are required to operate and defendthe nation, export products and create wealth and harmony for our citizens.
The alternative job is to implement policies that benefit theminority of Australians: those who don’t like the flag, our history, our wealth,or having to work for wealth, our harmony or anything at all, but won’t sod offto the unhealthy, overcrowded swamp they came from.
This same minority is trying to appease unelected bureaucrats inthe UN and their unproven policies of climate change, gender bewilderment anddisharmony of the nation through mass immigration of people openly hostile toour values.
These are the same minority who want to abolish Australia Dayand Anzac Day! Wake up!!!
This IS Australia, and we have a superb and colourful historythat we should be embracing and perpetuating, not trying to pretend our historyhasn’t happened to appease the few malcontents.
If you don’t like our Australian way, go back to where you camefrom and stop trying to change us!
So the policies of Team Albanese, elected by a minority of 32%,have been, and still are, totally focused on the minority, the unhappy and thelazy.
Policies of Division, new EPA laws disallowing activities withNature's Gifts, particularly coal and uranium, and Union control of runningcompanies with obstructive IR rules have been avalanching businesses. Nowonder they’re falling like flies, especially in regional Australia.
Now that Albanese’s popularity is plummeting, like Keating, hegrabs the ALP playbook to distract the media.
Last week it was Elon Musk refusing to obey Julie Inman Grant,someone many consider an evil shrew focused on revenge and certainly not what’sgood for the majority of Australians.
What will Albo’s red herring be for this week? His continuedembarrassment by Pauline Hanson?
So my message to the 8,000 business families on the recent coalface ALP-inflicted cost of livingcrisis: don’t give up!
I know the weak politicians always say, “We’re all in this together,” but small businesses always carry the burden of pain, as happened in the COVID lockdowns.
We have a wealthy nation; we need a strong leader focused onwhat is required and necessary for the majority.
Don’t abandon your dream!
Have a wonderful day.
Stuart Ballantyne
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