Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

There are thousands of small businesses that have a stake in what occurs with the ABIP legislation in the Senate this very day. There are thousands of small businesses that have a very big stake. There are thousands of small businesses that think that the government’s economic stimulus measures were absolutely what was needed to support demand and to make sure that small business had customers. This is something that those opposite have opposed all the way through—the essential economic stimulus that we have put in place to ensure that small business has got customers walking through the door.

Of course, then there is the campaign from those opposite against OzCar and the efforts of this government to ensure a flow of finance to car dealers. The principal beneficiaries of that will be car dealerships in rural and regional Australia. We have had a whole smear campaign mounted around that. They cannot be too concerned about the flow of credit to car dealerships. They are certainly not concerned about the flow of credit to many of those people in retail small business. We understand there is still a challenging environment out there for many in small business, and that is why we will do everything we possibly can to ensure that those matters are attended to and that credit flows.

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