Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

and if we are not getting ready to come back to parliament, to look at the Brisbane tennis tournament. I will be happy to host you.

The South-West Chamber of Commerce does great work. Under its president, Alice Langford, who is a quality community leader on Brisbane’s south side and a great supporter of the local business community, the chamber has been getting on with the job of making sure small businesses are supported and guided through the tough times. I particularly commend them for their work during the global financial crisis. More importantly, they also make sure that local businesses are ready to take advantage of the good times—or perhaps I should say the less bad times. This has also been the approach of the Rudd Labor government. We have learned from the efforts of governments during past downturns: do not just stand back and let the market rip; step in and help when you can. Look at some of the things we are doing for small businesses. We have standard business reporting, which will start on 1 July; the superannuation clearing house, which is obviously a good thing for some of the smaller businesses; and the national small business name registration, to name just a couple of the efforts of Minister Emerson in terms of reducing red tape.

I have already touched on the RSPT earlier in the speech, but I am sending a letter out to my small businesses talking about it because there is obviously a lot of misinformation out there. Not a lot of the small businesses are aware of the tax breaks that will be in it for them, the benefits for the 2.4 million small businesses—and the companies, for that matter—with the tax rate going down from 30 per cent to 28 per cent. Obviously it is hard sometimes to get the message through, because the fear campaigns can be strong, but if we had gone the way of those opposite and, obviously, the people who voted no all the way through to the economic stimulus package, our local council would not have benefited. I have a Liberal local government, a Liberal lord mayor—

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