Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Cowper for his motion and for giving us the opportunity to speak on the International Year of Cooperatives. I am pleased to be able to talk about some of the excellent work that cooperatives do in our community, and also to speak about some of the good work that the government is doing to support cooperatives. The motion correctly draws our attention to the fact that the United Nations declared 2012 the International Year of Cooperatives. This recognises the valuable social and economic contributions made by cooperatives at local, national and global levels, particularly in the area of development.

Some of the comments that I make will closely echo what others have said in this place, because we share the same sentiments and the same views about cooperatives. There is sometimes a view that cooperatives are a bit old-fashioned and that they are no longer relevant in our day and age, yet when we have a look at what they do, how many of them there are, and how many people own them and are represented by them, we see that that is just not correct. According to the United Nations International Year of Cooperatives National Steering Committee—Australia, 'Australia has over 2,000 cooperatives and 130 mutual banking institutions that are owned by more than eight million people.' That is a lot of people.

We have just heard the honourable member for Parkes speak about some of the financial institutions with reference to the contribution by the honourable member for Parramatta referring to the Bendigo Bank. That is an institution that I know well, as the Bendigo Bank also operates in my seat of Page. Not only is it providing a good financial and banking service but also it is very involved in the community and in various community initiatives.

I am sure that when the honourable member for Cowper was drafting the motion, he had in mind that it was the International Year of Cooperatives. Australia's cooperatives operate across a diverse range of industries including agriculture, services, rural grocery and petrol supplies, sugar milling—a very important industry in my area—taxis, tourism and wine sales. I also note that the Australian government through the Royal Australian Mint released a commemorative one dollar coin in January 2012.

I would like to talk about industry assistance. The honourable member for Cowper notes in his motion:

… some Australian Government industry assistance is not available to enterprises with a cooperative structure …

Industry assistance programs within the Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education portfolio do not explicitly exclude cooperatives from eligibility; however, program guidelines sometimes restrict eligibility to incorporated bodies or bodies that are required to pay income tax. If it is a question of guidelines, they can be changed. But, for example, the R&D tax incentive can only assist individuals or bodies subject to tax, as they obviously need to have a tax liability in the first place to benefit from the program. Where a particular co-operative is not incorporated or is exempt from paying income taxes, it will not be able to access most industry programs. That said, the government recognises the valuable role that cooperatives play in the Australian economy and is working to ensure that future industry assistance programs do not unreasonably exclude any particular business structure from eligibility.

I note in relation to the clean energy programs that the cooperatives in my area, Norco and Northern Co-operative Meat, are both eligible to apply for assistance under these particular programs and packages. I was involved in checking that they were eligible. So it is not restrictive across the board. In the meantime the government has introduced a number of key reforms across a range of areas.

Debate adjourned.

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