Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to speak on the Export Market Development Grants Amendment Bill 2014. This bill is another coalition promise delivered, and delivered in full. Before the election we promised that we would reinstate an extra $50 million to this export development grants scheme, and that is what we are delivering in the parliament today. I have been very pleased to sit here and listen to the contributions from the member for Sydney, the member for Canberra, and the member for Oxley, all saying how they support this scheme, how wonderful it is, and how it assists our exports. They are 100 per cent correct. However, it is worth contrasting how the coalition is delivering their promise to increase funding under this scheme with what the members of the Labor party did when they were in government.

Now let us go back to the Export Market Development Grants Amendment Bill 2013, which the member for Canberra actually voted for. What this bill proposed to do was cut $25 million from the export development grants for one year. They wanted to take away $25 million worth of funding. We here in the government are doing the exact opposite. We are putting $50 million back in over the forward estimates. We also should note the comments from our Minister for Trade and Investment in which he noted that our commitment was not only to make this one $50 million hit but that we would progressively restore the funding to the export market development schemes. This was a scheme that, under the Labor government, they completely ignored. In fact, if we go back to 2006-07, in the last years of the Howard government, this scheme was funded to the tune of $154.4 million. But in the export development grants bill of 2013, which the Labor government members all voted for, by then they wanted to cut it from $150 million. So in their six years of government they had not even put one extra cent in—it was still at the same level—and they wanted to rip $25 million away. This is the complete nonsense that we hear from that side.

It is worthwhile mentioning the absolute nonsense from the opposition in this debate. The other thing that they tried to do was to reduce the number of grant years under the previous scheme for exports to the USA, Canada and the European Union. Previously, the Export Market Development Grants Scheme allowed an exporter to apply for grants on a seven-year basis. In their last proposal for the scheme, the previous Labor government, who said that this was such a wonderful scheme, actually knocked out year 6 and year 7 for exporters exporting to the USA, Canada and the European Union and made a tokenistic one-year increase of an eighth year to Asia. They have a terrible record—a shameful record—of neglect of the scheme. This is in complete contrast to the coalition.

What this bill does, firstly, is commit an extra $50 million over the forward estimates period that will be paid to our small exporters that engage in export development. Secondly, and most importantly, it lowers the threshold. Previously, there was a threshold of $15,000 for an exporter's eligible expenditure that was not accounted. What we have done is reduce that to $5,000. That incentivises our small businesses—even down to our microbusinesses. In just one example, a business that had spent $15,000 on export promotion under the previous Labor government would have received a duck egg—zero; nothing. By the change that we are making to this scheme, that exporter would get back $5,000. Again, we are realigning this more to small businesses.

The second thing we are doing in the change to this scheme is increasing the number of grant years from seven to eight, irrespective of what market you export to. That is a very important step. I would hope in years to come, as the economy improves and our financial situation allows it, that we could increase that to extra years. That is important because exporters do not have just one product or one market that they export to. Over a period of five, six, seven or eight years, the market changes. The market that was eight years ago, compared to the market that exists today for exporters, is a completely different world. Exporters have to have new products; they have to go and seek new markets. Markets fall away and markets come back. That it should be knocked out after a certain number of years is not good for the scheme. The fact that we have been able to increase this from seven years to eight years is a very positive step in the right direction.

As I said, this bill is all about backing small business. We are sending the message to our small business community out there: 'Go out and have a go in the export market,' because 99 per cent of the world's economy lies beyond our shores. So we are sending a message to those small businesses in Australia: 'Get out there; have a go in the export market; if you take that risk, the government is there and the government will back you up.' That is what we need to drive this economy. We need to encourage those entrepreneurs, those creative innovators in this country, to go out there, put their own money on the line and take a risk, because that is what drives the growth, drives the employment and creates the prosperity in our nation. That is what exactly this bill encourages.

Export markets are tricky and they are complicated. I know for myself. Before I entered this parliament I sat around in boardrooms in New York, in Singapore, in Dubai and in the UK, trying to sell things from small Australian companies into those markets. One thing I found was that, no matter what part of the world that I travelled, when they knew that I was from Australia they gave me a fair hearing. That is the message that I would like to send to every potential exporter in the country—'Get out there and have a go.' That is what this bill assists.

I would like to touch on one thing quickly. For our exporters, one thing that is important to them is to be able to transport their goods to those export markets. In this parliament there is a lot of debate about our airline industry. We need a strong Qantas, but we also need a strong and expanding number of international flights in and out of this country, because those passenger aircrafts do not only move passengers. In the belly of the aircraft they move export air freight. That is so important to our nation because so many of the products that we have a competitive advantage in are perishable goods that need to be exported quickly by air to their markets. So the more air traffic we have—the greater the number of planes flying into Australia from international destinations—the more that opens up the volume, allows greater capacity and keeps the price down for our air freight exports. So we need to be very careful when we have the opposition not supporting the government and blocking changes to the Qantas Sale Act that would enable Qantas to compete on a more level playing field. The opposition are not only harming Qantas; they risk harming the thousands and thousands of Australian exporters and the tens if not hundreds of thousands of jobs that rely on the export of goods into South-East Asia through airfreight.

I am also very, very concerned about some of the statements by opposition members during this debate. It would appear that either they have not read the legislation or they do not understand the legislation. There is nothing that we are doing that adversely affects our exports to Asia. Previously, there was an eight-year allowance: you could claim a grant for eight consecutive years. What we have done is extend that eight years to Europe, the USA and UK markets. The great concern I have when I read the speech by the member for Sydney in this debate, where she criticised the reform, is that she thought the government should somehow come in and say, 'This export market is more important than this export market and therefore you should have different schemes.' This is what we see, unfortunately, from the Labor opposition. They have a complete desire and tendency to want to micromanage everything, to centralise planning. We should leave it to the exporters to decide where they believe they have the greatest chance of making export sales. It should not be up to members of the bureaucracy or members of the government to say, 'Isn't it wonderful, all this expansion to Asia is wonderful—that's where exporters should go.' Exporters understand that; they know that.

There is a scene from The Lego Movie, which is being released in the coming weeks in Sydney, that I want to mention here. In that movie the evil robots are called the 'micro-managers'. What the micro managers try and do is ensure that everyone in Bricksville adheres to the government's plan about what should be done. In the final scene the micro-managers go to war against what are called the 'master builders', the creative ones, the entrepreneurs. I bet when members of the opposition are sitting there watching that movie and see that final scene they will be cheering for the micro-managers, because that is what we see from their comments about this legislation.

The other concern we have about the government trying to decide which export market it would be best for marketers to sell to, rather than leaving it to the exporters, is that we need to be careful about the idea of giving Asia some priority. Yes, everyone exporter in the nation understands that there are many opportunities in Asia, just like there are many opportunities elsewhere around the world. But we have to be careful that we do not overrely on any one region in the world for our exports to go to. We have the example of the Woolworths and Coles effect on many small businesses, where they find that their market share of the potential customers they can sell to is one customer having 40, 50 or more per cent of their business, so they simply become hostage to that customer. That is what we have to be very careful about with our exports.

We currently have a situation where more than 25 per cent of our nation's exports go to one country. That exposes our nation to external risks. If something ever happens with that market, or some centralised control in that market decides they no longer like Australia goods for some reason, we have put ourselves at risk. What the opposition propose is to have greater emphasis, with some centralised plan, on encouraging exporters to go to Asia. Not only is that a flawed idea; it could have many adverse, unintended consequences. So I am very pleased that this bill wipes that out. It levels the playing field. Under these coalition amendments, it will not matter where you export to the world, you get that eight years.

There are some very successful exporters in my electorate of Hughes who received export development grants over the last financial year. I would like to mention them, congratulate them and thank them for the wonderful work that they do to drive prosperity, to create jobs and wealth in our nation. They are: Abel Metal Services of Moorebank, Beverly Hills Trading of Revesby, Control Systems Technology of Revesby, D V Import & Export Pty Ltd of Illawong, Deb Australia of Chipping Norton, Destination Consulting of Alfords Point, Orion Art of Engadine, Sphere Healthcare of Moorebank and W & S Plastics of Moorebank. I hope that I can stand in this parliament in 12 months time and be able to add a great number of companies in my electorate to that list. That is what we all should do as members of parliament. We should all be out talking about this amendment, talking it up in our electorates, saying, 'We as the government support you to go out and have a crack in the export market.' Every member of parliament should be doing this because that is what is going to drive prosperity. We need those small businesses out there taking the risks. That is exactly what this bill does. I commend it wholeheartedly to the House.

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