Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Finance Minister on Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

Indeed, Restaurant and Catering Australia did welcome the $2.7 billion tax break for small business which the coalition opposed. The Pharmacy Guild said:

The Pharmacy Guild of Australia welcomes the tax break for small business.

And:

The measure comes at the right time to encourage community pharmacies to make productive investments …

We are now moving towards the end of question time, and I notice that generally there is a question from the coalition when a survey of consumer sentiment comes out, but I note that we did not get one today. There is a pretty good reason for that: the survey of consumer sentiment was released not long before question time and it says, in part:

On the face of this there is a surprisingly good result.

It goes on to say:

It may be that the index is now finding a base.

Importantly, the Westpac Consumer Survey says:

The big surprise came with the outlook for the economy over the next five years, which surged by 15.2 per cent. This could only be interpreted as a strong vote of confidence that current policies are providing a strong foundation in the longer term.

Current policies that the coalition voted against and continues to campaign against. There is Bill Evans of Westpac saying that this is a very good result and that we are doing the right thing by the Australian economy with this Nation Building and Jobs Plan. The tragedy of the situation is that the only jobs that those opposite care about are their own.

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