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

I thank the member for Forde for his question, for reasons which will soon become evident. I launched the Small Business Support Line on 3 September to provide advisory services to small businesses during the global recession. I am pleased to advise the House that, since the support line became operational, 2,226 calls have been received from small businesses. That support line is being staffed by a team of eight advisers, each with extensive small business experience. Yet again, in criticising the support line, the member for Moncrieff has got it wrong. In a press release of 17 August, he claimed that the Small Business Support Line ‘will be staffed by bureaucrats and offer none of the tangible help which small businesses need day to day’. I can report that a survey of callers reveals a 90 per cent satisfaction rate with the Small Business Support Line. It is staffed by small business advisers with extensive small business experience, not bureaucrats, and is very, very popular—90 per cent satisfaction.

I am asked about impediments to the support line and the government’s effort to support small business. The shadow minister for small business is an impediment to the government’s policies. Is it any wonder that, in the list of the Gold Coast’s 100 most powerful people, the Gold Coast Bulletin has relegated the member for Moncrieff from 46th last year to 93rd this year? In explaining the member for Moncrieff’s demise, the Gold Coast Bulletin says:

THE Moncrieff MP has taken several hits this year as the Coalition struggles to keep pace with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd … He is regularly mocked by the ALP for failing to ask questions in the chamber.

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