Canberra's chefs and restaurant owners are onto a winner, with lockdown offerings selling out - and as shadow business minister I applaud these operators who have adapted their business models and can keep staff on the books.

But when I compare their success with the stories of small business hardship filling my inbox each day, it is clear that lockdown has created winners and losers in the business stakes.

Reading these tales of despair - lengthy application and processing times for business grants, being denied access to premises to fill online orders for click-and-collect services, confusion about the length of support packages, the complete shutdown of our construction sector and complications over border regulations - I cannot help but conclude our small business sector has been completely let down by the ACT government, which has failed to provide the clarity, certainty and financial support business needs.

I still have a job and a fortnightly paycheque, but most Canberrans are not so fortunate - which is why so many people feel desperate.

As a former small business owner, I worry most about the struggling operators.

The gardeners and hairdressers, music teachers and builders, beauty therapists and retailers, hire-car drivers and fencing specialists, handymen and gym owners, dry cleaners and taekwondo instructors.

I refer to the hairdresser with several salons (and a small tribe of primary school-aged kids) "in grave danger of not surviving this lockdown", and the garage door and fencing business that has stood down most of its 30 staff and wonders "how long we can continue to function this way".

I fear for the small builder and father of three who employs 14 staff and wonders "should we just sit here with our heads in the sand and watch everyone go broke?"

And the beauty therapist in my electorate of Yerrabi, who says "bills are piling up, small operators are floundering and this is putting even further strain on my already fragile business".

Small businesses are bleeding across Canberra, but one month after the lockdown began, the vast majority are still waiting for financial support.

The ACT government has promised a Small Business Hardship Scheme with credits of up to $10,000 for fees and charges but it won't kick off until October and business are still in the dark about details.

With the joint federal/ACT government business support grants, as of yesterday about 1100 businesses had received support, to the tune of $17 million. That still leaves about 5000 businesses waiting for assistance.

That means thousands of struggling small businesses are yet to see any cash hit their bank accounts.

While the average assessment time is meant to be 30 days, businesses required to submit extra information will have their 30-day time frame reset, meaning they are forced to survive even longer without assistance.

One fitness business owner who contacted me was understandably furious when asked to submit sales records he had already lodged as required with his original application.

"Because of that, not only does my 30-day assessment time frame start again, that's on top of the caveat 'We reserve the right to extend the 30-day time frame'!" he fumed.

Lockdown is challenging for all Canberrans - but not all of us are on taxpayer-funded salaries. Small business is crying out for help.

A study of 500 business owners earlier this year revealed the past 12 months had taken more of an emotional toll on them than any time before.

Photographers Amanda and Caleb Thorson, who have run their studio for 12 years, said they had become used to the emotional rollercoaster of running a small business.

What really struck me were Amanda's words: "You learn to live with the stress; it becomes normal. It's just a different way of life that a lot of people don't understand."

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We hear it all the time, "Canberra is a public service town."

As I said in my first speech to the Legislative Assembly, Canberra is a public service town - but also a proud small business town. Yet too often with our Labor government small business struggles to get a look in.

Last month I moved a notice of motion in the Legislative Assembly calling on the government to provide a hospitality support package and emergency grants for those businesses which had suffered a 30 per cent downturn.

Much of Canberra's hospitality sector has been smashed, yet the government rejected my plea for a financial lifeline - with the Greens dismissing it as a "cash splash".

The Labor-Greens government's lack of business support follows its failed ChooseCBR scheme where the government wasted hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on marketing costs while fewer than 20 per cent of eligible businesses participated.

Small business owners fear for their economic future, and the government's job is to support them in dire straits and provide a rescue plan that offers certainty and hope.

As one owner wrote to me, "I've been in business 15 years, and I fear that with our current COVID rules there will be very few small businesses left fighting once restrictions are finally lifted."

If Canberra small business operators go to the wall because their government failed to support them during lockdown, what a tragedy that would be.