Sasha Thurston

entire years taking on all of the risk and putting in all my own money before I started to make a modest income.

And like many small business owners, we are literally just buying ourselves a job.

So it's really disappointing to me, particularly at the time when I'm getting close to wanting to move into a softer life and not work so hard.

So probably not retirement, but something that looks like a

that I'm not going to be able to profit in the same way from all of the efforts that I've put in over the last 12 years.

It would be better if the government just got a little bit out of our way and just let us do what we need to do.

I think it's getting harder.

Personally for me, I went into a business that fulfilled a very, very deep passion.

And I know that my business provides a great deal of good to the community in which it exists.

You know, yoga is in particular, it's a very low cost way for people to take care of their mental health.

to find community and a whole lot of other things.

So the goodness that comes from businesses like mine, I think is also very much underrated.

Next door to me, I have a local coffee shop where the community also meets and gathers.

And on the other side of me, I've got sort of a pottery art collective space that also does the same thing.

If you took away those three businesses from my local community, the community would be much poorer for it.

Make it easy for people to start small businesses and don't penalise them.

We do deserve, after all the effort and risk, to be left with something at the end of that process.

So that's my message.