A real small business worry


Political parties devote a lot of their time and energy to appeasing the small business community and with so many people now contract workers rather than wage slaves that is understandable but there are only two groups I can think of that really do have the power to influence the votes of people other than themselves and their employees. Pharmacists are one and news agents the other.
The lobbying skills of pharmacists are well known and Governments make changes to the payments system at their peril and in Australia are much too scared to remove the privileged position of individual operators by allowing chains stores to get into the prescription medicine business. With newsagents their power of persuasion is not tested as regularly but the government has ensured that at least some limited protection from the major chains remains despite recommendations otherwise from the competition body.
But now the New South Wales government is daring to risk the anger of those people who home deliver our papers by selling off the State lotteries — a process that will put t risk the major earn that newsagents get from selling those Lotto tickets and Scratchies. It is a process that will need to be handled with some care by the government.

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