Ep 46. A Fair Go? Dan Rosewarne on Labour's Plan for NZ's 530,000 Small Businesses

I like it.

You've actually covered my next question, so I don't even need to get into that.

But before we get into Labour's policies, you mentioned something earlier around this view that, and, you know, when I was at school, We had this as well.

If you didn't go through uni, you were deemed a second-class citizen, so to speak, right? There's heaps of business owners that have built their careers through trades, practical experience and learning on the job, basically like you have.

Do you think that as a nation, we give those pathways and the people who follow them the respect they deserve?

No way.

I mean, we're good at celebrating success once they reach that milestone, but most of the business owners I talk to, you know, like...

A lot of them are plumbers, builders, pretty, you know, they do normal jobs.

And I just love hearing the stories that they tell me.

It's just like they started out on the shop floor, pushing a toolbox trolley around, and now they've got their name above the door.

That's such a cool story.

And it's just rife across our country.

And I just really want to embrace that.

We're not good at acknowledging that enough.

I think, you know, we really need to get some of those business owners into schools.

and say to students, hey, yeah, what you're hearing right now, you may feel that you're not fitting in where you need to fit in in the education system, but neither did I.

And they can be what they can see.

And that's so important.

I like that, that you can be what you can see.

Yeah.

So getting into one of the policies that you've got around the 15-day payment commitment, That's going to sound pretty attractive to any owner waiting on an overdue invoice.

But can you take us through how it's going to work? Maybe a real example.

Who's got to pay within 15 days? When does the clock start? And then what happens if you don't get paid?

Yeah, good question.

What I'll do is I'll just define what a small business is and then what a big business is.