"Half of the 10 biggest businesses in America today were formed in a single generation," says Salt. "Here is entrepreneurship writ large." He calculates the top 10 businesses in Australia today by market capitalisation are BHP Billiton, Commonwealth Bank, Westpac Banking, ANZ, National Australia Bank, Telstra, CSL, Wesfarmers, Woolworths and Macquarie Group. With the exception of Macquarie, the youngest business in the Australian top 10 is Woolworths formed in 1924. "By comparison the Australians look flat-footed, you have to say," Salt says. "You could make the case that 100 years ago we handed out franchises. Here's four banks, here's a telco, here's two retailers and here's a mining company and we ain't moved on." Salt says while Australia is the third richest country on earth this is not the result of entrepreneurship rather it is due to Australia's natural resources and the scale of the population compared to the size of the continent.

"I would say we have benefited from complacent prosperity," he says. "We are rich enough. There is no fire in our belly. We have cultivated an expectation of prosperity and security. It lulls us into a false sense of security." Salt says Australia needs to shift otherwise it will be left behind. "Will there be global disruption from an Amazon or something else coming out of Silicon Valley and sidelining Australian businesses?," he says. "We need to develop a culture of entrepreneurship. The Australian response to business success is 'How did you get to be so rich?'. It is that culture, what we call the tall poppy syndrome that you could argue is a loveable characteristic of the Australian people or I could also make the case it is a fundamental flaw." It is that culture, what we call the tall poppy syndrome that you could argue is a loveable characteristic of the Australian people or I could also make the case it is a fundamental flaw. Bernard Salt Salt says Australians need to value people who create businesses rather than knocking them.

"It is really, really hard to start a business to generate sales to employ people to pay tax and to be a good corporate citizen," he says. "It is hard to do that. We need to shift the way in which the heartland thinks. Instead of 'How did you get to be so rich?' it's 'I admire that quality'. That's the shift." Salt says this is not an issue for the government. "Typically the Australian response is 'What's the government going to do about it?'," he says. "I say, 'What are you going to do about it?'. When you say what is the government going to do about it you abrogate responsibility to someone else. When you say 'What are you going to do?' that means you expect 24 million people to say I admire people who have the guts, the fortitude, the insight, the determination to create a business." Salt says Australians need to change their mindsets to support and value entrepreneurs and businesses. "At the core of it is our attitude to entrepreneurship and family business is at the pointy end of that can do attitude," he says.

The reporter attended the conference as a guest of Family Business Australia and KPMG. Follow MySmallBusiness on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.