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

I thank the member for Blair for his question and for his invitation to engage with him in a very productive small business breakfast just last week. It was very well attended too. The government supported Australia’s small businesses and our tradies during the global recession through our economic stimulus plan. During the recovery we want to support our small businesses again through small business tax breaks. In fact, the government’s economic stimulus plan is right now supporting small businesses right around Australia, including our tradies in thousands of construction projects across the nation.

I remind members of the chamber that the opposition voted against and continues to oppose the fiscal stimulus package which is supporting our small businesses and our tradies. But not all members of the Liberal-National Party feel that way. George Christensen is the Liberal-National Party candidate for Dawson and a councillor on the Mackay council. At the council’s meeting on 16 December last year, Councillor Christensen moved a motion that the council accept $4½ million from the Rudd government’s Social Housing Initiative, which is being organised and provided through the good auspices of the member for Sydney. Councillor Christiansen clearly supports the government’s economic stimulus plan, but he is not alone. The LNP’s candidate for Wright, also in Queensland, is Hajnal Ban. She is a councillor on Logan City Council, in my own area, so she is a member of a council that has benefited from stimulus funding of almost $5 million for, amongst other things, local roadworks, a library fit-out just down the road from my office and an extension to the Logan Entertainment Centre. And what about Councillor Jane Prentice? Councillor Prentice has nominated for LNP preselection for the seat of Ryan to replace the now demised member for Ryan, who has been thrown out of the LNP and obviously has a few more questions to answer beyond the LNP’s own internal investigation—and I will have more to say about that later. Back to Councillor Jane Prentice: she is a councillor on the Brisbane City Council, which has gratefully accepted more than $16 million in funding from our economic stimulus plan.

Doctors take the Hippocratic oath. These three LNP candidates and aspirants will need to join with sitting LNP members in taking the opposition leader’s hypocritic oath, which says: ‘I support the Rudd government’s stimulus package in the electorate but I pledge to oppose it in the parliament.’

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