Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Emergency Management) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Robertson for her question. She has a long association with small business; indeed she and her husband, Paul, run a small business in her own community.

Today the Prime Minister announced a very important decision in the creation of the Office of the Small Business Commissioner. This is a very important decision that was welcomed of course by Peter Strong, the Executive Director of COSBOA, who was in attendance at Parliament House today. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend because the opposition chose to prevent me from attending by not pairing—a rather petty decision, I would have thought—but that was more an insult to the small business community than to me as minister.

In relation to this decision, the Office of the Small Business Commissioner plays a very important role. The first time this position was created at the state level was by a Victorian Labor government in 2004. This is the first time it has been determined at a federal level. It provides support for small business. It will provide referrals for other government services, including dispute resolution. It will allow small business to make representations to that commissioner and direct to me. This is a very important role to provide independent advice and sourcing advice from the small business community and I think it has been well received by that very important constituency.

Of course, that comes off the back of the announcement by the Prime Minister to elevate this portfolio to cabinet. I think this is a very important decision. It is the first time that small business has been in a federal government cabinet for more than 10 years. It does speak volumes about the priorities this government has to provide support for this very important constituency. During the global financial crisis we made some very important decisions to stimulate the economy to ensure we could provide support for thousands upon thousands of small businesses. That was the right thing to do, and we look to do more by providing support for small businesses across the country as we provide all sorts of opportunities, including the $6,500 instant asset tax write-off for small businesses, the $5,000 write-off for business vehicles and a reduction in the company tax rate from 30 per cent to 29 per cent for incorporated companies.

These are important initiatives to create the environment for small businesses in this country to do very well. It is a constituency that employs almost five million Australians. What is going to stop that, of course, is the actions of the opposition leader who is choosing to oppose those tax cuts to small businesses.

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