Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

I am always thankful of any opportunity to talk about small business, because it really is the engine room and the backbone of the Australian economy. While this is a good motion, it does not tell you the difference between the actual record of Labor in government and what the Liberal-National Party coalition government is actually doing. The coalition needs to seriously reflect on this motion, given the actions that the government has already taken. What has it done to date? Its commitment to small business from 1 January 2014 has been to take away, rip out, $4 billion of direct tax assistance from small businesses. This is not how you help small business.

Under Labor, you could immediately write-off each business related asset costing less than $6½ thousand. This was much appreciated and much taken up by the small business community because it was direct assistance. Under Tony Abbott and Bruce Billson, this has been reduced, from 1 January this year, to just $1,000. That will hurt small business. Under Labor, small business could claim up to $5,000 as an immediate deduction for a new or used motor vehicle. This has been completely scrapped by this new government. So while we go and help small business directly—not just talk about it, but actually do something directly—this government talks about helping small business but actually takes the assistance away.

These two initiatives for small business and sole traders alone were introduced to help with cash flow, which, if anyone who understands small business knows, is one of the main issues that affects small business. It is not just me saying this. The Australian Industry Group said that the small business asset write-off threshold should not be reduced from $6,500 to $1,000, because it would add an extra administrative burden. So this is a government that is adding burdens according to AiG. The so-called savings to the budget of this repeal are $2.9 billion, but it is $2.9 billion levied on small business. You are taking it away from small business. How does that help small business? Tell those 2.7 million small businesses how charging them more helps them.

There was an even better one that we put in place; it was the first time in Australian history that we had the tax loss carry-back. We had recognised, when talking to small business, that there ought to be an opportunity for them to claim losses back on tax that they had already paid if they made losses in a particular year during difficult times. That was the first time that was ever done. It was really well taken up and was worth $950 million. It meant that today a small business could get a cash rebate from the government on tax paid in the past. This was something that small business understood and appreciated. They understood it to the value of nearly a billion dollars. That is how much they understood and how much they valued it. Across the country, 110,000 small businesses made use of this Labor initiative that has now been taken away by Tony Abbott and Bruce Billson. So, again, while they talk about being a friend of small business and helping them, what they actually do in action is the exact opposite. Peter Anderson of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said that the tax loss carry-back and the instant asset write-off were also recognised as very good stimulus measures for small business. Again, that is another person backing Labor in terms of our record.

Rather than just the rhetoric we hear from the other side, the facts are that Labor has a great record in government supporting the engine room of the Australian economy—small business, including sole traders. For the record, because you will hear in this place that somehow under us there were less small businesses or less people being employed, as at June 2009 there were a bit over two million actively trading businesses in Australia, and that rose to 2.14 million as at June 2012. The number went up, activity went up and small businesses prospered under Labor.

In fact, when it comes to employment under us, the unemployment rate was always a little bit too high I thought but around 5.5 to 5.7 per cent. What we are seeing under the Liberal government is unemployment hitting six per cent for the first time in a decade, and that will go to 6¼ per cent. While we may have forecasted that, there is a simple thing to understand here: Tony Abbott said, 'If we get into government, we'll do a better job.' If you are just going to say, 'We'll just keep whatever Labor had in place,' then you are supposed to be doing a better job. The facts will always remain that under us unemployment was lower and that under you unemployment is higher. They are just indisputable facts.

Labor also introduced the national system for registering business names, which was one of the most time and money saving and cost-effective measures you could put in place. We also streamlined the business reporting requirements. We introduced the R&D tax offset for small business, the prompt payment protocol and the Wein review looking at the franchising sector to make sure there was a balance. I applaud any motion that highlights the issues of small business, especially if it gives me the opportunity to talk about the positive things that Labor did in government. We did things; you just talk them.

Debate adjourned.

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