Small business feels it has been left out in the cold in the federal government's new push for productivity.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the Business Council of Australia (BCA) and the ACTU met in Melbourne on Wednesday to thrash out a new productivity agenda.
NSW Business Chamber chief executive Stephen Cartwright called the gathering another "slap in the face" for the vast majority of business owners across the country who haven't had their say.
"Since returning to the prime ministership, Mr Rudd has constantly talked about the importance of the business community," Mr Cartwright said in a statement.
"He has shown what he means, and that is simply that the biggest 100 businesses are important, but two million small businesses are not."
The BCA represents the nation's top 100 bosses.
Resource industry employer group AMMA said Mr Rudd needed to get his "head out of the sand" and stop denying that Labor's workplace relations laws are having a negative impact on productivity.
"The business community agrees that innovation, training and good management are important to productivity," AMMA chief executive Steve Knott said in a statement.
"But the government cannot pretend that Australia's workplace system is not also a significant part of the productivity equation."
The ACTU will be pushing for better training for corporate executives in identifying and implementing measures to boost productivity.
ACTU secretary Dave Oliver said with rising company profits over the past decade many employers have taken their eye off the ball.
"We are concerned there has been a loss of skills in the ranks of Australian management in identifying measures to genuinely improve productivity and in engaging employees in finding solutions to business problems," he said in a statement.
Finance Minister Penny Wong said the government had helped to lift business efficiency and productivity with the removal of 3000 regulations as part of its ongoing agenda to cut red tape.
"Labor is committed to supporting business," Senator Wong said in a statement.
She said Labor had taken further steps to improve the approach to implementing regulation through a two-stage assessment of the impacts on business, the not-for-profit sector and the broader community.
Opposition parliamentary secretary to the opposition leader, Arthur Sinodinos, described such claims as "a joke".
"Claiming the removal of 3000 pieces of already redundant regulations with no current economic or productivity impact, is not delivering any benefit to business whatsoever," Senator Sinodinos said in a statement.
A coalition government aims to reduce red and green tape by $1 billion per annum in consultation with the community.
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