Brett Raguse (Forde, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to compliment the last speaker. It is certainly a tough task to come new into this parliament and have to do an MPI, but she performed very well. Having been a small business man myself, I think some of the comments coming from the other side are just rhetoric. We as a government do understand small business. We have empathy for small business. I would like to ask all those speakers on the other side how many of them actually have small business experience. My understanding is that very few of them do, although maybe as a council bureaucrat, and certainly as a lawyer, some of them have experience in business.

What is small business? I know from my experiences of listening over a period of time to the opposition and their responses that they are full of rhetoric. They run the company line. They talk about mismanagement by the Rudd government and a whole lot of other issues. But they are incorrect. The thing that worries me the most is when we see the new opposition leader out there in public with small businesses talking about the threat and the fear that these interest rate rises are going to kill their businesses. I should remind the member for Higgins that our current cash rate now is three per cent lower than what it was under the previous government and when we came to government. The reality is, they are running a scare campaign on rising interest rates.

I did not hear from one of the opposition today—again, because of their lack of small business—about the reality of small business. The reality of small business is not about cost or interest rate hikes or a whole range of other issues: it is about bringing in business. When the economy is flat, when there is no business activity, small businesses fail. At the age of 21 I employed 25 people. Howard was in government as the Treasurer. We had 22 per cent interest rates. That was bizarre and terrible but we survived. The reality was that there was enough stimulus created by the work that we were doing at the time to get by. The reality is that the fear about a whole range of issues does not matter. If you do not have the business, you do not survive. How do the internal machinations or mechanics of a business work in terms of the financing and leveraging? The reality is, if the business model is not working it is not working.

Regarding the consideration that was put by the other side about how we as a government have spent a lot of money, firstly they say that we have not kept our promises and then they complain that we are overspending. I do not understand where they are coming from. The reality is that there is, through our stimulus package, a large amount of money going into the economy through projects that we identified. As the global financial crisis hit, it was something that we needed to attend for large corporations and the many employees that they have but for small business particularly. Small business can fail due to people simply pulling up and not spending on some very basic day-to-day items. We saw the dry cleaning example very eloquently used the other day. The member for Dunkley was very prominent there, reminding his leader that there are men who also do the housework. The reality for small businesses is that if the demand disappears, they have no work. That said, we as a government have responded very well through the global financial crisis. We will continue to respond and to maintain that stimulus, watching very carefully to see that the stimulus supports small business at the first level and large organisations at the higher level.

For those opposition members who have not had the personal experience of having to finance their own business, the reality is that you only survive on your own collateral and your own ability to finance your business. There are no large pools or surpluses of dollars, or some reserve or even shareholders who may make good with dollars when the company is in business. The tipping balance for a small business is very low. In fact, a small business can fall over very easily if the wrong dynamics are in place.

As a government, we understood this. We understood immediately the issue of credit flowing into this country—the large investments for big business and the credit for those right down the chain, such as the small businesses who provide services to larger companies by working on small contracts. They often have half-a-dozen employees. Without the business, they do not survive. The Rudd government provided that stimulus. We understood. Not only do we have empathy for small business—and that is evident in the work that we have done in our approach to the GFC—but we have a holistic approach to financial management. Unlike the other side, we have confidence in our economy and in the decisions that we have made. The proof is in the pudding: what we have been able to achieve as a government. (Time expired)

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