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

In the case of the superannuation clearing house, as I am reminded by the member for Prospect, again, the government says, ‘This could be very complicated.’ Well, not if it is an option. They do not have to do it. What is wrong with options? What is wrong with choice?

This government says it is all for choice. We see this in Work Choices, which is no choice at all. In the case of working Australians who want to bargain collectively and who go to the employer and say, ‘We want to exercise our choice to bargain collectively,’ under the Orwellian Work Choices legislation the employer can say, ‘You think you’ve got a choice, Pal? Well you ain’t got no choice whatsoever, because we’re not going to talk to you about your desire to bargain collectively.’

If we are talking about freedom and choice, let us give a choice to everyone. Let us give a choice to working Australians who want to bargain collectively. Let us give a choice to those small businesses that want to access Labor’s proposal for a superannuation clearing house. And let us give a choice to small businesses that want to avail themselves of BAS Easy. Yet this minister mischievously presents it not as a choice, not as an option, but as an obligation. It is not an obligation; it is a choice.

Those simplified accounting methods, according to the Treasurer, are a very good idea. He introduced them in around 2001. He has extended them somewhat since then. He announced in the budget that they would be extended further, to any small business—not just to small restaurants, cafes and catering companies but to any small businesses who wanted to go to the tax office and say, ‘I’m really interested in cutting my GST bookkeeping requirements; I’d like to talk to you about you issuing me a ratio, or we’ll do a snapshot. Let’s have a talk.’

The problem—and it is evident in the behaviour of the coalition tonight—is that it is pretty clear that if this government were re-elected, that would be a very short conversation. The tax office would say words to the effect of, ‘Yes, we’ve got a special ratio for you: it’s called 10 per cent—10 per cent, the full Monty, because you’re not getting any GST input tax credits.’

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