Small business loses out again

Call me a damp squib if you will, but the Federal Government's textile clothing and footwear (TCF) review has already left me feeling a little under-whelmed.

Please don't misunderstand me, I applaud any project designed to "develop practical and effective strategies to ensure Australia's TCF industry enjoys a vibrant, innovative and competitive future". As long as it has relevance. Unfortunately I feel equally as strongly that any initiative driven by a political body stands a higher-than-average chance of being flawed.

With a large portfolio covering several sectors, the man charged with driving the review, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research - Senator Kim Carr - cannot be expected to understand the enormous array of issues facing the TCF industry.

So, in order to get a better grip on the sector he has anointed the dean of Macquarie Graduate School of Management, Professor Roy Green, review head. In turn, an "expert" advisory panel has been formed, bringing together representatives from the textile industry and various research and educational professionals whose task it would seem is to represent all industry stakeholders.

In structure the esteemed panel of eight, no less than a quarter of which is made up of union representatives, appears similar to the set up back in 2000.

Then, under the auspices of the Textiles Clothing Footwear and Leather (TCFL) Action Agenda, it was part of the panel's job to identify barriers impeding the growth of TCFL exports and to demonstrate the benefits of bringing together research and education institutions and firms in the TCFL industry.

Then, as in now, the panel failed to reflect the not-significant input of small business to the sector and was skewed towards large business.

Admittedly it could be argued both Brian Rush (president of industry body TFIA and CEO of Australian Defence Apparel Limited) and Phil Butt (President of the Footwear Manufacturers' Association of Australia and MD of J Robins & Sons) operate in the not large business sphere. However neither of these could be considered to be the edgy design-based type business considered - as one submitter stated - "the cornerstone of future success".

Senator Carr's website promised that all submissions put forward would be made available for viewing by the public. However at the time of press - two weeks after the submission process had ended - this had yet to be done.
It is only a hunch but I reckon even when the list of submissions are made public - very few, if any, will be from small business. They are too occupied with trying to keep their heads above water today than to worry about what's going to happen tomorrow.

The lack of representation for small business was further driven home earlier this month when I was lucky enough to be sit on an industry advisory panel for the L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival's business seminars. My fellow panellists featured a diverse group of TCF representatives including several one-man-band type designers, a couple of retailers, representatives from Melbourne-based educational institutions, and the head of industry body the TFIA. At least half the panel had no idea who the TFIA was let alone what the industry body did.

Begging the question if we as an industry are struggling to identify our own key members, how on earth is this review, in fact any review, going to sort out all our problems?

By Tracey Porter