Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is IR related, Member for Dunkley, and you know what it is about. Of course, contract protections for small business is okay between small and large businesses. That is the manifesto that the member for Dunkley spent so much time focusing on.

In many ways, the more things change the more they stay the same. The conservative political party in this country spend a lot of time talking about small business outside of this place but very little time talking about it inside this place. They take it for granted. They think it is their natural constituency, but they should understand that many small businesses in this country—many that I speak to—know that their real allegiance is to the big businesses of this country.

That is where they get their campaign funds and that is why, when I look at unfair contracts, competition policy and other matters, I have a bit of a laugh. They have never lifted a finger in this place through the Trade Practices Act to improve the standing and the competitiveness of small businesses against larger businesses.

I have been saying in this place for 17 years that there are only three critical things a government needs to do for small business. First, it needs to grow the economy, which this government is doing miraculously in the face of the biggest global economic downturn since the Great Depression. Second, it needs to keep the price of money, the price of borrowing, low; keep interest rates low. Interest rates in this country are at a historical low. The member for Dunkley talked about spreads, but he knows that is a matter completely outside the control of this government or any other government but rather is affected by global economic circumstances and the necessity of the banks in this country to borrow more funds onshore. The third important thing is to simply get out of the way. What hurts small business more than anything else is overregulation, and this government has a very good track record of getting out of the way of the small business community.

I spent many years in this place as the small business shadow minister, and I spent many years in this place as shadow Assistant Treasurer—a portfolio which causes one to spend a lot of time on small business issues. It is not just about the three things I mentioned; it is not just about the things we need to do and not do. It is about the things that at first blush do not appear to be related to small business—things like the National Broadband Network, which is particularly welcomed by people like me who represent rural and regional Australia because it gives small businesses in the region a competitiveness they could never have dreamed of in the absence of such technology. Of course, that is another initiative of this government that those on the other side seem determined to get rid of.

We have elevated, in the real sense, small business to the cabinet level and I am very pleased that we have a new small business minister who, like those before him, does understand small business. Minister Bowen is from Sydney's west, and that is the heartland of small business in this country. You find many traders and home marketers and people working in IT who are self-employed. Small business people and business people generally are the real creators of wealth in this country. We are committed to ensuring they remain the real creators of wealth. From this government you will not just get the sort of rhetoric we heard from the Leader of the Nationals and the member for Dunkley and that we saw in the glossy one-pager the member for Dunkley waved around today; you will get real policy initiatives and real action—the type of action that is good for small business, which will continue to grow small businesses and will give small business the opportunity to flourish and employ Australians.

It was a little unfair for the member for Dunkley to claim that small businesses are employing fewer people. We have had a mining boom, and small businesses have found it difficult to retain staff. People are taking the opportunity to earn higher incomes in the mining and associated sectors. What is the Labor Party doing? It is attempting to spread the benefits of the boom, to level the playing field and give small businesses an opportunity to compete. Perhaps they cannot compete on the wages front, but we are investing in things that do level the playing field. Infrastructure is generally part of that. It is apparent that the member for Dunkley does not understand that. I am sure the Leader of the Nationals does not understand it, and we know, having heard them so many times, that the conservative forces in this place are long on rhetoric and very light on detail. (Time expired)

See this speech in context