Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Service Economy, Small Business and Independent Contractors) Share this | Hansard source

You certainly did lead with your chin on that one. I will go further, because the Tully Motel proprietor, in desperation, wrote to the tax office in these terms:

Dear Sirs

We recently received a notice of change to our PAYG withholding cycle, copy enclosed. I should like to take this opportunity to appeal against this change for the following and very simple reason.

I conduct all of the administrative activities for our small business.

That is a very typical situation. He went on to state:

There is no-one else available.

Why? Because it is a small business. He went on:

At the same time I also engage in maintenance on the property, re-furbishing and repainting etc and also spend considerable time in the “front office” welcoming guests to our motel and, in general, seeking to do what small business people constantly strive to achieve, i.e. improving our offer.

We also employ around 10 people in the business.

Since we bought the business I have noticed that, rather than reducing the time that state and federal government demand of me, the time commitment is increasing. For example, where we used to, not very long ago, subscribe to one super fund I now have to administer contributions to five.

In the budget reply, Labor leader Kevin Rudd laid out our plan that small businesses will only have to pay the superannuation guarantee one time into one place and that we will ensure that under super choice the money will then flow to the appropriate superannuation fund, elected by the employee. That was opposed by the Minister for Small Business and Tourism and opposed by the Treasurer, and the small business minister says, ‘Give me an example of anyone who’s upset.’ This is the small business minister who in this parliament said small business unanimously supports the Work Choices legislation. She has talked to 1.9 million small businesses around Australia and they are unanimously supporting Work Choices! Another MYOB survey indicated that 44 per cent of small businesses are dissatisfied with the performance of the minister and dissatisfied with the performance of the government—and the minister claims in the parliament that every one of the 1.9 million small businesses unanimously supports Work Choices.

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