20 April 2023
Tap into Australia’s ‘missing middle’
Beth Webster (“Australia needs export champion”, April 17) identifies the key risk for the Australian economy from the decline of our two major exports – coal and iron ore. But we need more than skilled entrepreneurs and cash to backstrap the path to new export champions. We need business models to support those entrepreneurs and the small and medium-sized enterprises they operate to work together pooling their capital, know-how and skills to scale into export markets.
Australia’s “missing middle” is the large domestically owned firms and co-operative consortiums that are the backbone of advanced manufacturing economies around the world. Australian entrepreneurship and talent will remain latent while we ignore domestically owned export business models like co-operatives formed for the purpose of collaborative innovation, value-adding and scale.
Melina Morrison, CEO, Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals, Sydney, NSW
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