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

The purpose of the Export Market Development Grants Amendment Bill 2014 is quite simple: it is to amend the Export Market Development Grants Act 1997—a good act, one that does a great job for small business. It has changed only slightly over preceding years and is one that is supported very much by the Labor Party, by Labor in government and by Labor in opposition as well. It is an essential scheme that assists small business in being able to deliver to export markets in a more efficient and effective manner and, possibly further than that, being able to access export markets for the first time, or being confident that they have a hand-up rather than a handout when exporting. Through my electorate and through other electorates, I know of the good work that individual small businesses and enterprises have undertaken and the value of this assistance to them. I am very much in support of anything that improves this scheme.

The EMDGS is administered by Austrade. The scheme is generally regarded by everyone as a successful measure to support Australian small to medium exporters and business. The act has been amended over the years, largely for efficiency reasons. I do not think anyone would argue about the good quality of the work and the development of markets that can be achieved through some government assistance. On the face of that, this would just seem like common sense.

While the government are moving these amendments and we support them, it does fly in the face of a lot of what the government say on other matters. The government say, 'We'll just get out of the way and you can get on with doing your own things.' They do not want to intervene. They do not want to help. They are dismantling all sorts of assistance measures, including direct small business assistance lines and, very importantly, some very good consumer protection measures that were put in place by the previous government specifically to support small business.

We are seeing this develop and come out under the cloak of getting rid of red tape and regulation—which everyone supports. Why wouldn't you? You would be mad if you did not support getting rid of red tape. It drives us all crazy and we should get rid of more of it. And that is exactly what Labor did in government. We actually had a minister for deregulation. We took this so seriously that we repealed thousands and thousands of regulations and got rid of red tape. We went further. We did not just do the easy lifting. We did not just pick the low-hanging fruit—while we are talking about export markets. We actually did some serious stuff, some reforms. Whether it was in the charitable sector or the small business sector, with business names registration and a whole range of other measures we went a very long way to reduce red tape, regulation, costs and paperwork. We did all the things that you would expect any good government to do.

What we are going to see develop out of this week and the coming weeks, unfortunately, is the government operating under the cloak of red tape reduction and all of that—that nice big cloak they are going to put over all this. Everything that is red tape and regulation must be bad; that is what the government says. But it is just not that simple. Every time I meet with small business groups, with farmers, with exporters, with anyone, they do not come to me saying, 'Get rid of stuff.' They say: 'Can you just give us a bit more protection in this area? Can you just give us a bit of a hand here? Can you help us to compete better? Can you protect us? Can you help us?' This is what they say to me about things that are happening to them.

We agree with them, and we agree on both fronts. We should reduce red tape and regulatory burdens and make it as affordable and easy as possible for small businesses to flourish, because they are at the core of creating jobs in this country. Small business is not just the bastion of the Liberal Party or the National Party. We get it. We put programs in place to support and develop small business. There are many things we did. I am going to list them, because there are some people in this place, on the other side, who just happen to think they are the only ones who have ever had an idea. But so far all we are seeing of their ideas is: 'How much can we cut from small business? How much can we take away from small business protections and consumer protections? How much can we make life harder for them? How much direct assistance can we take away from them?' What they will say is, 'We can't afford it.' Well, they can afford the things they like or the things that ideologically suit them. If it is a rolled gold paid parental leave system for some of the wealthiest people in this country, of course, that is fine—$5½ billion or $6 billion. But when it comes to supporting small business with real funds, about $4 billion has just been taken away from them. So I would say to every small business owner: 'Who got the $4 billion that just got taken off you? Who got your money? I will tell you who got your money: the government did. They just want to put it in their coffers. That is who took your money.'

This bill does not cost a lot. It is only $50 million over the forward estimates. It is only $12½ million per year. How generous, and we welcome it. We welcome it because, in government, these were the sorts of things we did, because we wanted to go out there and support small business and support market development, and the EMDGS is a great scheme and a great way to do it. But I can imagine right now—I can almost hear the crescendo of screams from the other side—if we had done this in government in those last days, when we had a bill that would have gotten through but the parliament was prorogued for the election. They would have said: 'We can't afford this. It's just more money, more waste.' The Liberal Party and National Party, every time you spent a dollar, said that it was debt, that it was a debt dollar. Every single dollar that the government has, according to the Liberals and Nationals, is just debt. They forget that you actually have government revenues as well. Which one is debt and which one is revenue? Which one are you taking out of which pile? They just dumb down the debates here. They simplify and dumb them down, thinking that Australians will not be smart enough to get the nuances. They come in here and they go, 'Here is $12½ million per year for a great, revolutionary program.' Well, it is simply not. It is a small, modest increase. But it is absolutely supported, because you would be mad not to.

This will be a cost to the budget, but we are not going to carry on about a cost to the budget on something that is a really good measure, that does good things. You get a return on investment. There are some new words for the Liberal Party: 'return on investment'. You will actually get value back. The more you help small business, the more they will return, through revenues, directly to government. That should be a focus of the Liberal Party—I am not going to talk about the National Party—who say they are the best friend of small business. If you are the best friend of small business and you rip at the heart of small business assistance and take away $4 billion of direct assistance, I would hate to see what you would do if you were their enemy.

Let us just talk about simple facts. What did we do in government—what actually took place and happened?—and what did the Liberal Party do when it got to government? It ain't a great story, let me tell you that. Let us just walk through a couple of the things. I am very proud of Labor's record in government. Labor introduced a Small Business Commissioner for the first time. For the first time, we have got a direct voice, a business voice, directly at the highest level of government, representing small business interests and concerns. I am glad to see that the Small Business Commissioner has survived. I am glad to see we still have the Small Business Commissioner, because it is a good idea and it actually works well for small business. It gives them a focal point. It is a direct link into government. The new government are keeping it. They are keeping Labor's policy

They are keeping Labor's Small Business Commissioner because it is a good idea and we ought to support it. So I thank the government for being so generous.

We also went to the heart of trying to deal with the costs for small business. One of the big costs for small business was business names registration. In the modern world in the 21st century, we had this curious system that was different in every state and territory, that was very expensive and time consuming. If you wanted to register your business nationally, you had to do some online, some by paper, some by visiting an office nine to five. And, if you got there, the cost was usually over $1,000. That was not good enough.

What Labor did in government was say: 'We can fix that. We can reduce your costs.' At the time, we reduced it down from $1,000 down to $30; one system, online. This was a massive undertaking by government, criticised the whole time by the Liberals because they thought somehow this might not benefit small business. Let me tell you, as the years march on, small business will realise and they will look back and think, 'Can you believe we once did it the other way and that it used to cost us that much?' It was Labor that introduced it, and this government will have to keep it—and they will keep it—because small business names registration was a bureaucratic burden for small business. We changed it. We made it easy. We made it seven days a week, 24 hours a day, online, cheap and accessible. That is what governments ought to do.

That is what governments ought to do for small business; real red-tape reduction, not just coming in here and going to some department and saying to the department: 'Look, find us anything, something from 1902 and something from 1910 that no-one even remembers exists, and we will just get rid of those bits of red tape and regulation because it will make it look like we are doing a lot.' But we are not fooled by that. You are doing a lot of nothing.

The areas where they are actually doing something are the areas that involve a little bit of pain. There is a little bit of a sting in the tail, a little bit more cost. You have to remember that this is how it works in this place: every time the government talks about saving, they are talking about saving for them. Every time they talk about saving, it is a cost to you. Everybody listening understands that every time the government says 'We're saving X million dollars', they are actually taking it from you. It is going to cost you. The Liberal Party think it is their money. They think the savings are for them.

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