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Small business owners simply don’t have time for mental health.

They’re head of operations, head of marketing, head of sales. They keep customers happy and suppliers and overheads paid, and complete an average of 15 hours of government paperwork every week.

“We sit and acknowledge that mental illness exists,” explains Jeremy Suggett.

“Then it’s, ‘Okay, let’s get back to that s*** storm that we’ve got to deal with for the rest of afternoon’.”

Mr Suggett has run successful Sydney medical device business Cosuda for the past 15 years but says when he has encountered difficulties as a result of financial crises, changes in government policy or unexpected tax hikes – there has been nowhere to turn.

And even if there was, there’s no point getting a doctor to write “a letter to myself” as boss because he couldn’t give himself time off to deal with it anyway.

The 47-year-old says government has played a role in “killing” small businesses and no doubt added to the pressures he faces by taxing on forecast earnings.

“There’s no incentive … for me to grow my business,” he explains.

“Every year when I pay my tax and they go, ‘Oh Jeremy, you had a good year this year, well done mate. We think you’re going to do (even better) so we’re going to actually get you to pay that up front now’.

“I went through this 10 years ago and my cashflow was just depleted from paying tax. And I thought, ‘Well, that’s it, what’s the point?”

With the global trade war and cost-of-living crisis ever threatening, Australia’s two-and-a-half million small business owners are dealing with more external pressure than ever.

They are experiencing high rates of stress, depression and anxiety, and low levels of wellbeing compared to the general population, according to Wellbeing and Prevention Coalition in Mental Health and the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia.

Of 250 operators surveyed by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry last year, 34 per cent had received a mental health diagnosis in the previous 12 months, compared with 21.5 per cent of Australians aged 16 to 85 in Australian Bureau of Statistics data.

As well as the enormous impact on individual business owners, the loss of productivity is also having significant knock-on effects on the Australian economy to the tune of an estimated $220 billion annually, says Beyond Blue CEO Georgie Harman.

Small businesses make up 97 per cent of all Australian workplaces, contribute a third of GDP and employ over five million people, she says.

“We’re talking about people here, we’re talking about families, we’re talking about communities, we’re talking about health and wellbeing,” Ms Harman tells AAP.

“We haven’t nailed the uniqueness of the mental health needs of small businesses in particular … whether it be cash flow, isolation, loneliness, long hours or the fact it’s really personal: ‘It’s my identity. I employ my friends and family. If my business fails, I fail’.”

Personal relationships are deeply embedded in the day-to-day of running a business, Mr Suggett explains.

“I get really invested in working with the people I’m working with as opposed to just looking at it as a business transaction,” he says.

Council of Small Business CEO Luke Achterstraat says a lot of owners feel “the weight of the world on their shoulders”.

“Behind every statistic is actually a family, an owner … who is often paying themselves last,” he says.

“There’s only so many hours in the day … Often, by the time they get around to their own wellbeing or to their own needs late into the evening … they realise they’ve got more paperwork to do.”

Mr Achterstraat says instead of adding to the “red tape” for enterprises that don’t have in-house legal or HR teams, government should be focusing on simplifying it.

Diagnosed with depression and anxiety at age 19, Mr Suggett knows what steps to take when he is feeling the ‘overwhelm’ and lives by the analogy that it is vital to “put your own oxygen mask on first”.

But he is in a minority.

While he always finds time to talk to contemporaries and contacts about their struggles, he doesn’t have time to establish a formal support network.

“You need someone else to drive it because you can’t have the people involved in it carry an extra load. It’s just not feasible,” he says.

Beyond Blue is one of few outlets running support services where struggling small business operators can seek free advice and assistance.

“All of our coaches have a small business background – they’ve got the t-shirt and they can absolutely connect with the people they’re working with,” Ms Harman says.

“Because by the time they are seeking the services out, they are have already reached crisis point … we’ve got to make it easy for them.”

Ms Harman says Labor and coalition election promises on mental health – both at or near to the $1 billion mark with a focus on youth services – are worthy of recognition and plug “immediate and urgent gaps”.

But for a relatively modest investment, government could be helping small business owners too: “the backbone of the Australian economy”.

Mr Achterstraat is less inspired.

“We really want to see both sides pull their socks up with respect to better policies around red tape and tax reform,” he says.

Mr Suggett is more scathing about politicians’ “flowery statements”.

“It’s just fluff,” he says.

 

Katelyn Catanzariti
(Australian Associated Press)