Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Groom understands, but the Leader of the Opposition does not understand how important the NBN is for Australia's small businesses. An Abbott government will see the National Broadband Network stopped stone dead. It is not just me who says this. There are small businesses around the country who have said how much they benefit from the National Broadband Network. They have said how much they appreciate the benefits brought to them by the NBN. They have said that it reduces their costs, that they have a larger market, that they are able to sell across the country. And they will be very disappointed to see the National Broadband Network stopped on the election of an Abbott government.

Honourable members know about the small businesses in their electorates. Those honourable members who have the NBN coming through their electorates will have had their chambers of commerce saying how great it is. Those honourable members who have to wait a little longer will have had their chambers of commerce saying, 'Please, can we get it quicker.' They will get it not at all under a Liberal government. Again, they have the hide to lecture us!

We have a pattern here, across all these things. It is a pattern of rhetoric about small business. The Liberal Party claim to be the friends of small business but deliver nothing for small business. They take small business for granted. And this is not just my view; it is also the view of the body which represents small business: COSBOA, the Council of Small Business of Australia. They recently put out a publication entitled COSBOA: the year 2012 and what we expect in 2013, and under sections titled '2012—the year that was' there was 'Engagement with the government', which I will come back to, and 'Engagement with the opposition'. In that section they said:

We stated our concern last year that there are still people in the Liberal Party who believe that all small businesses vote for the coalition and therefore there is no need to do anything special for the small business community. We still have that concern … It is time that the whole of the coalition came to recognise that small businesses and independent contractors are in fact a mainstay of the economy and need fairness and transparency in policy and process.

That is not a ringing endorsement. That is the small business community of Australia saying, 'We are being taken for granted by the opposition—by the alternative government.' It is the peak body of small business saying, 'We have had enough of the lip service. We have had enough of the rhetoric. We have had enough of the small talk. We want to see some action and some policies, and they have none.' And they are very concerned and they will continue to say it.

This is what they said about the government:

We have been in regular contact with the Small Business Minister … and his advisers and expect this to continue … This level of interest and dialogue is welcomed and is recognition from the government that we count as citizens of Australia.

There is a bit of a different tone when they are talking about the government's approach, because COSBOA, as the peak body representing small business in Australia, has recognised the concrete measures taken by the government to help small business. We do not just talk about it. We do not just pay them lip service. We do not insult them with cheap rhetoric. We do not mislead people about vilification, as the Leader of the Nationals did at the dispatch box a few moments ago—and he could not back it up with one single fact. He could not back it up with one single example. He was strong on rhetoric as always, as is the entire opposition when it is about small business. He is happy to pay them lip service and happy to insult them but not happy to give them concrete policies.

As long as I am the Minister for Small Business serving in the cabinet and as long as the Labor Party is in office we will talk about small business. We will talk about their importance to the economy. We will talk about them being the engine room of growth, but we will do something more than that: we will back it up with policies. We will back it up with support. We will back it up with action. We will do something for small business in this country—something the Liberal Party has not done and, under this Leader of the Opposition, continues not to do.

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