Kerry Rea (Bonner, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It would have to be good! She will certainly appreciate this support for her business. I know that it will also make a big difference to Don, who has run a very small business for many years—Win Trophies at Upper Mount Gravatt. He has always been very supportive whenever I have had a request for a trophy for a school or a badge for some particular occasion. We could all talk endlessly about the small businesses that will be supported.

I also want to emphasise how important it is to support small businesses because of the impact that they have on our broader economy. It is so important that we support the economic stimulus packages that have already been released by the government. In Bonner alone, more than 7,000 people are employed in the retail industry, not just in the big supermarkets but in the local dress shop, the local fruit and veg shop, the local video shop, the fish and chip shop and the coffee shops that we have throughout Mount Gravatt, Wishart, Carindale and Belmont. Those small businesses keep community life going but also provide essential employment for local people—particularly our young people and people who depend on casual employment. Through the economic stimulus strategy and the Nation Building and Jobs Plan, it is absolutely essential that we go out there and provide for spending in the community which goes into the small businesses, like the local hardware shops.

At the same time, we have to accept that small businesses are always struggling with paperwork and administration. Obviously, maintaining their tax payments and keeping their costs moving are very important parts of keeping their heads above water. So the support provided through the 20 per cent PAYG instalment reduction in this bill is just as important as the spending package, because it means that when the good times do come again—and I am sure that they will—those local businesses, many of them family businesses, will still have their heads above water, having survived the tide, because they actually had a government that cared enough to say, ‘We will give you the flexibility, we will support your cash flow and we will give you the support you need through the hard times because we want you to be there for our local communities and our national economy when the tide turns and we are all facing more prosperous times.’

I certainly applaud the first schedule in this bill. The other two schedules are also very significant, with superannuation changes in schedule 2 and income changes in schedule 3. At this point I want to focus on the amendments in schedule 1. I know that many small businesses in my electorate and others will benefit from these changes. When I have the opportunity to host a small business forum in the next couple of weeks—with the Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy—I look forward to explaining not only these amendments but the many other packages that this government is providing to help small businesses to keep their heads above water.

In conclusion, this is not something that is going to a sector of the community that does not deserve it, nor is it going to a sector of the community that does not pull its weight. I know how much support chambers of commerce and other business organisations are giving to individual businesses. The community of small businesses support each other, and I am pleased that this government is enabling advisory groups and various other mentoring programs and is making other sorts of grants to support chambers of commerce and business organisations to help individual businesses that may just stay alive with a little bit of support from their peers. That is why, in closing, I would like to particularly congratulate the Wynnum Chamber of Commerce, who have just received a $100,000 grant from the minister for small business to provide mentoring services, financial advice and many other essential services to our small businesses to make sure that they can keep that little bit ahead of the game in such difficult economic times. I commend the bill to the House.

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