Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

We are just having this discussion and if I could characterise in the same way the Treasurer did, a tax that raises that much, but spends that much, leaves this much in between that is not funded. I would suspect, like many in the small business community, that not only did the coalition recognise that Labor had made promises it could not cash, but Labor would have revisited these measures themselves. Labor went around the country being completely overstated in the way in which they characterised these benefits. This was never a tax cut. These were rephasing of depreciation allowances that we are keeping but recognising, if you front-end load those depreciation allowances and argue that they help cash-strapped small businesses, that small businesses actually need to have the ready cash available—so cash-strapped are they—to claim these benefits some months down the track.

In addition, this was also the measure that saw the abolition of the entrepreneurs tax offset. For the cacophony that is coming from the opposite side, I wonder whether they realise that they were party to the abolition of the entrepreneurs tax offset. That was a discount available to Australia's 400,000 smallest businesses earning modest income, that got a slight incentive, introduced by the Howard government, to recognise their effort and their enterprise. This mining tax that you talk about has not raised money anywhere near the amount you talked about and cannot fund any of the promises that you said it would, and it has imposed compliance burdens that burden everybody even if they are not paying it and has even included the abolition of a modest tax incentive for those courageous small businesses, 400,000 of them. And it was not just companies but independent contractors, partnerships, self-employed people who were all forced to pay higher taxes on their modest incomes as a result of your changes.

I think that the best thing Labor could do is be honest with these small business community. They overcooked it when they were in government. They talked about delivering benefits that never arose. They put out newsletters saying that they had delivered a reduction in company tax—that never arose either.

Mr Dreyfus interjecting—

See this speech in context