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Perhaps only hermits may not have noticed the explosive allegations of sexual assault by dozens of women in Hollywood against the film mogul Harvey Weinstein.

The allegations are about a sexual creep making full use of the ‘casting couch’ along with fearful women being silenced by the Hollywood system. More...

Some claim that freelancing, self-employment, whatever you want to call it, is surging in developed economies. For example:

•  One USA survey states that freelancing there has grown from 53 million in 2014 to 55 million in 2016, now making up 35 per cent of the workforce, an amazing observation if true!
•  In the UK, the rise in self-employment is well documented and authenticated. Over 4.7 million people were self-employed in early 2016 having grown from 11.9 per cent in 2000 to 14.9 per cent of the workforce.
•  However, in Australia self-employment has been fairly steady, bouncing around the 18 per cent mark for the last decade.

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First we said that NAB had ‘trashed its own small business brand’. We said this in March this year because of NAB’s lie that it had made its small business finance contracts comply with the unfair contract laws.

Last week we expressed tentative praise for NAB after it had ditched its bad contracts and come up with new ones. NAB’s self-congratulatory PR seemed to indicate a major step forward. But we said we’d check its standard form contract first.  More...

It’s World Mental Health Day. As small businessperson we’re often asked to have concern for the mental health of our employees (if we have any)! But what about our own mental health?

Mental health problems can happen to anyone. Here’s the story of high-profile media personality Osher Gunsberg, host of The Bachelor. He was out jogging and started hallucinating that the world was ending. He sought help.  More...

More good news on the unfair contract front! But first some background.

Back around 2009, when we were talking to big businesses about having fair contracts, the chief legal counsel for one of the big banks said to us, “We’ll do what we’re made to do.” We realized then how difficult our campaign would be. But we succeeded. The new small business unfair contract laws we pushed for started at the end of 2016. More...

It’s a shame but really annoying that we have to continue reporting on, and ‘taking on’, the Tax Office over the harassment of small business people.

We have several cases ‘on the go’ but here we update you on the Rod Douglass case. To remind you, last year we had the ATO back down in the Federal Court admitting that its allegation of fraud by Rod was baseless and “incorrectly formed”. After two years of harassing Rod, the ATO dropped its claim of $440,000 against him backdated to 2006. It has never apologized mind you!! More...

We were contacted this week by news outlets. They wanted our comment on the young woman who’s been sacked because she’s voting ‘No’ in the marriage equality poll. The ‘line’ being run by some commentators is that because the woman was apparently an independent contractor that she is in a vulnerable situation.  More...

We don’t know if the two are related, but

Australia’s economic growth is unexpectedly surging beyond expectations, and
The unfair contract protections for small business people are really starting to kick in.

Whether the two issues are connected or not, there’s no question that Australia’s economic structure is undergoing reform in a way not happening in any other economy.  More...

We’re delighted to report that the Vulnerable Workers Bill passed the Senate on the evening of 4 September. This is the new law resulting from the 7-Eleven worker wages fraud scandal exposed by 4 Corners/Fairfax in late 2015.

The Bill passed with only minor amendments, but that kept the integrity of the protective measures in place. Here’s our analysis of the Bill from May. The law will not only protect low-paid workers but will: More...

We commented recently about dysfunctional politics. But with the chaos that’s developed over politicians being constitutionally ineligible because of dual citizenship, things have become weird!

Now we know it’s probably just a bit ‘weird’ for ‘normal’ people to sit and read the Constitution and constitutional rulings, but we couldn’t help it! In fact, being Aussie ‘weird’ is a great tradition. Check this YouTube video of the 1966 movie They’re a weird mob. You’ll either groan with embarrassment or laugh out loud. Or take lessons on how to ‘Aussie’ behave! More...