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

I thank the member for Barker for his question and congratulate him on the outstanding job he is doing representing small businesses, family and farming enterprises in his electorate. When we were together in Mount Gambier we heard from those small businesses and family and farming enterprises. They told us about the ever-growing burden of red tape and compliance costs which they have to carry, how these costs were burdening them and taking their eye off running their businesses and growing opportunities and economic potential in their region. They very much echoed what the Prime Minister said today when he said it is government's job to serve people; it is not the people's job to serve government. We were able to share with them our ranking, a ranking we inherited from the previous Labor government. It saw us 124th in the world out of 148 countries in terms of the burden of government regulation. The World Economic Forum Global Competitive Index tells us the story of compliance and red tape burden laid on by the previous Labor government, layer upon layer. That is why we made the commitment to repeal $1 billion worth of red tape, to get out of the road, to try to support small businesses and family enterprises, creating opportunities and livelihoods that are so important to communities like those in Barker.

With today's announcements by the Prime Minister and his very talented parliamentary secretary for deregulation, we have announced $2.1 billion of red tape and green tape savings—not $1 billion as we promised but more than double that amount. That is taking out of the economy the burdens of red tape and compliance inflicted by the Labor Party. We have enabled small businesses which have had very little requirement in terms of PAYG instalments to just deal with their reporting obligations as related to their business activity statements. For those who had very little in the way of activity that they did not need to put in a BAS as long as they reported in PAYG. That is 372,000 small businesses sharing in the $67 million of red tape and compliance costs; the Small Business Superannuation Clearing House, moving out of Human Services and Medicare into the ATO, a 24 per cent increase in participation; changes to the Corporations Act; the announcements today to make sure our Export Finance and Insurance Corporation can get behind those small and medium enterprises that see market opportunities to grow our economy and to grow jobs.

We have more to do: our franchising reforms are deregulatory whilst they are more effective and our employee share ownership initiative, getting that right and fixing Labor's problems but reducing the compliance burden. We have $48 million of savings on double handling of paid parental leave. We want to get on with that job. We want Labor to get out of the road. We know that Liberal and National members in this place are the only friends small businesses have. We want to get behind their enterprises and help them. (Time expired)

See this speech in context