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

I will see the shadow small business minister’s Winston Churchill quote and raise him a quote. The first quote from Winston Churchill is:

There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result.

He came in here and was going to shoot all these bullets—and he completely missed. There is the Winston Churchill quote number 1. Winston also went on to say:

Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.

What you have just launched is another chapter in a scare campaign, a chaotic, shambolic scare campaign undermined by your own members of parliament, most particularly of course by your good close friend Senator Barnaby Joyce—and I will have plenty to say about that.

You asked about commentary. I will give you some commentary from the small-business community. This is from the Council of Small Business of Australia, which said:

The idea that the tax cuts might be cut out before they even come into effect is very concerning.

              …              …              …

The tax cuts and depreciation bonus for small businesses announced by the government is a good step forward on tax reform.

So you have got the Council of Small Business of Australia saying that they are very worried about the coalition opposing the Resource Super Profits Tax. Why? It is because the Resource Super Profits Tax would generate revenue to fund the small-business tax breaks that we are offering.

Not one word was spoken about the small-business tax break in the form of instant write-off of assets valued at up to $5,000. These are any assets valued up to $5,000, not falsely, as the coalition claims, only for companies, but for every one of Australia’s 2.4 million small businesses. This is a tax break for partnerships. It is a tax break for sole traders. It is a tax break for small business companies, and it is a tax break denied by the coalition. They say they are the party of small business. What a joke! There was not one mention of the fact that Tony Abbott, the opposition leader, and his colleagues in the coalition, would deny small business the tax break that COSBOA is saying that they really want.

It is not just COSBOA. The Australian Newsagents Federation said that it has expressed concern ‘that small businesses may lose the urgently needed tax relief that has been recently announced by the Federal Government’. They went on:

The Government’s plan to cut the small business tax rate from 30 per cent to 28 per cent and allow small businesses to instantly deduct the full costs of assets valued at up to $5000 is important to community newsagents and all small businesses.

There you have the Australian Newsagents Federation calling on the coalition, pleading with the coalition, to pass the Resource Super Profits Tax so that all newsagents can benefit from those tax reductions. We know that in terms of the head start on the company tax rate reduction for small businesses that 720,000 small businesses would receive that. That is a lot of small businesses. But all 2.4 million small businesses would receive the instant write-off.

The supreme irony of this is that in the week of ‘gaffethons’ that we have seen from the coalition, the opposition leader passed the parcel to the shadow treasurer, and the shadow treasurer passed the parcel to the shadow finance minister, who wanted to pass the parcel to his staff member, who said, ‘No, not me, pal. Just get out of here—pull out!’ In that process the coalition managed to remove the one tax cut policy that it had for small business, and that is the carry-back of losses, which was coalition policy. But it was sacrificed on the altar of expediency in that shambolic process of pass the parcel through to the staff member of the member for Goldstein. The fact is, small businesses would be great beneficiaries from the tax reform package that the Rudd government is offering, and what is standing in the way of small businesses getting much-needed tax relief is of course the coalition.

The coalition stood in the way when the Labor government wanted to provide an economy stimulus package to support our tradies and small businesses. The coalition opposed it; they voted against it. They did not believe our small businesses deserved a break during the deepest global recession since the Great Depression. No, they believed that small businesses should just go broke—let the market decide; let the market determine. They voted against that stimulus package. They voted against our tradies and our small businesses then. They voted against the greatest school modernisation program in Australia’s history, which is being built by our tradespeople, our trades men and women in this country. What have the opposition said about that? It is the end of trade training centres. Well, who builds the trade training centres? Our tradies do, and they will have plenty to say about the coalition’s plans for trade training centres in every part of Australia.

The impact of the tax reform package on small business can also be said to be related to investment by the large mining companies in Australia. So let us have a look at the analysts’ consensus recommendations from the E*Trade website on 24 May. In relation to BHP, five analysts reported that they all have strong buy recommendations for BHP. For Rio, four analysts reported, three with a strong buy recommendation and one with a hold. For Fortescue, five analysts reported, three with a strong buy recommendation and two with a hold. For Woodside, four analysts reported, three with a strong buy reported and one with a hold. So there you have the analysts saying, ‘Invest in the Australian mining industry—invest in BHP, invest in Rio, invest in Fortescue, invest in Woodside.’ We know that the member for Dickson, Pig Iron Pete, absolutely agrees with investing in BHP because Pig Iron Pete did exactly that. He showed good judgment. Two days after the release of the tax policy of the Rudd government, the member for Dickson bought BHP shares.

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