Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

It sounds familiar. I went and checked the writings of the honourable member for Rankin, who had been saying exactly the same thing: that a Labor government would introduce BAS Easy for all businesses which have a mix of GST and non-GST products. But the devil is in the detail. The last line in the Treasurer’s statement is:

... will be able to approach the Australian Tax Office (ATO) to discuss—

to discuss!—

the development of a simplified accounting method for their use.

They are going to have a chat. That is the government’s policy: ‘We’re going to have lots more chats with small business. We’re going to discuss the use of a simplified accounting method for their use.’ Is the government really committed to this? They have announced discussions. Why don’t we just do it? You cannot be half-pregnant. Why don’t we just introduce BAS Easy? Why don’t we get on with it and introduce BAS Easy? The Council of Small Business Organisations certainly thinks we should. COSBOA has backed BAS Easy. I quote Mr Steven, not always somebody who supports Labor policy—not a card-carrying member of the ALP, I hazard a guess. He says:

Taking an opt-in approach will allow those businesses that are working with few or no staff to adopt the new BAS Easy system—

we should have copyrighted that—

and save time and effort should they so wish.

The Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia has backed BAS Easy, particularly by extending it to independent contractors and small business owners. COSBOA wants it, small business wants it, the Labor Party wants it and the government sort of want it—they are not sure. They thought they had done it. Then on budget night they said: ‘Well, we thought we had done it but actually we are going to extend it to more businesses. However, it is only going to be for discussion.’ Let’s just get on with it. Let’s just do it. My colleague the honourable member for Rankin, the shadow minister for small business, will move a second reading amendment in his contribution to this debate calling on the government to introduce BAS Easy. Let’s just get on with it. Government members will have the chance to stand up for the small businesses in their electorates by walking into this chamber and sitting on this side of the House to support Labor’s proposal to introduce BAS Easy. I suspect there will not be many.

As I said, this is a step in the right direction, but there are a number of regulatory burdens on small business which still need to be dealt with. This bill deals with federal tax, but small business not only pay federal tax; they also pay state taxes. The lack of harmonisation between state systems is of concern to many small to medium sized enterprises as well as to large enterprises. There are many businesses now—you do not have to be too big—operating across state boundaries. That is something that, again, the Labor Party has tackled—not just in relation to tax but in relation to regulation generally. In the same speech to the National Press Club, the Leader of the Opposition announced:

A Labor government will adopt a system of incentives to states to harmonise their regulations.

There has been some movement on a payroll tax basis. That is welcome, although I do not think it goes far enough. It makes no sense to have different payroll tax bases from state to state. It would be much easier for small businesses and medium sized enterprises, as well as big business—this affects them as well—to have consistent payroll tax bases across the nation. This is just one of many areas right across business regulation. It would make so much more sense to have harmonisation across the states wherever possible so that you do not have to have a different type of first aid kit in Sydney and Brisbane, so that bandages in a first aid kit in Adelaide can be the same length and width as they are in Perth, so that we can have some decent, consistent business regulation across the board.

One of the biggest contributions to the economic growth and the economic prosperity that this nation is enjoying, and that we hear about on a daily basis from the government, has been national competition policy. That, amongst other reforms, planted the seeds for the economic prosperity we are enjoying. This proposal is based on those same national competition principles. I will express the view—I do not think I will be controversial; I think most people would agree with me—that national competition policy would not have worked without incentives built into the system. The only reason the states got on board national competition policy was that the Keating government made it in their best interests to do so—and so it is with regulatory reform. The time for reviews is over. The time for reports has been and gone. The time for more reports about how states should reform their regulatory burden and harmonise across state borders has been and gone. It is now time for action. It is time for the federal government to show some leadership, to work cooperatively with the states, to disengage from the blame game and say, ‘Let’s sort this out.’ I have a suspicion that it will take a Rudd Labor government to achieve that.

Other things were announced by the Leader of the Opposition in his address to the National Press Club. He announced that under a Labor government there would be a ‘one in, one out’ policy. If the Commonwealth government introduces a new regulation, we find another regulation for it to replace. There has been lots of evidence that the amount of legislation—pages of legislation—and regulations passed by this parliament, if I recall correctly, has been bigger in the last 10 years than it had been in all the other years of our Federation. Something is going wrong. We need to have a system whereby, whenever a new regulation comes in, there must be an attempt to remove another regulation so that the regulatory burden, not just on small business but on society generally, does not continue to grow. It is not, in fairness, an Australian phenomenon; it is happening throughout the world. But we can do something about it in Australia by adopting Labor’s policy.

It was also announced—and it is relevant to this debate—that Labor will introduce a superannuation clearing house. You would think that would be welcomed. The government introduced Super Choice. That debate has passed and Super Choice is in. But small business, as we warned they would, are facing the burden of implementing superannuation choice. They are facing the massive paperwork burden of administering the superannuation choices of all their employees. Labor says that a clearing house will do it for them, if they wish.  The Minister for Revenue and Assistant Treasurer raced out a press release about this proposal. He said two things. Firstly, he said:

The Labor Party should not be directing small business to put their superannuation funds into a superannuation clearing house.

And he is right; I agree with him. The Labor Party should not be directing people to do that, and we never were. The Leader of the Opposition’s announcement was clear—the press release was clear—that this would be optional. Small business could choose to use the service. The Assistant Treasurer, in the first line of his press release, said, ‘The Labor Party will direct small business.’ The Assistant Treasurer needs to be more careful about the facts. He needs to be more careful when he criticises Labor policy. We can disagree about the impacts, but let us not misrepresent the facts. He also said:

This is a policy that has been thought up by the union bosses.

The Assistant Treasurer really needs some new material. We hear this day after day.

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