Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me much pleasure to second this important motion by the member for Dobell. This is particularly so because her electorate, in the Central Coast region of New South Wales, and mine, in north-east Tasmania, are both strong microcosms of wider small business activity throughout Australia. In both of our seats and across the nation, the reality is that small business and the employment that flows from it hold, in large part, the key to the economic fortunes and futures of those we represent. As the member for Dobell said, it is, quite simply, the engine room of the Australian economy. This reality is made even stronger and perhaps more poignant by the practical linking of family and small business through the establishment of the Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman. The ombudsman will be a national advocate for small business and will assist in the development of small-business-friendly laws and regulations.

It is clear that for too long small business has been relatively unacknowledged. It is the solid, tireless worker of the Australian economy, the quiet achiever always there but with a relatively low public profile. As such, it has been too easy for some in this parliament to take it for granted and to regulate it in ways which hurt or stifle its growth and smooth functioning, as through some of those 21,000 additional regulations that appeared during the Rudd and Gillard governments from 2008 to 2013. These regulations affect not only small business but most other Australians, either directly as small business employers or employees or indirectly as consumers or taxpayers. That is why we are so strongly committed to reducing the red-tape burden facing small business.

As the Tasmanian representative on the coalition's deregulation committee, I was very pleased to hear the member for Kooyong last week announce that we will remove nearly 1,000 pieces and over 7,200 pages of legislation and regulation as part of our spring repeal day. That follows the more than 10,000 pieces and 50,000 pages of legislation and regulation we removed from the statute books during our autumn repeal day last March. In just over a year, the coalition government has announced more than $2.1 billion in red- and green-tape savings for the business and not-for-profit sectors. This more than doubles our commitment to remove $1 billion in red and green tape from our economy each and every year. In doing so, we are saving small business owners both time and money.

We are reducing their tax compliance burden with administrative changes to GST and pay-as-you-go reporting. As the Minister for Small Business pointed out last Wednesday, this means that businesses with no GST payable will no longer be required to lodge a business activity statement, which would otherwise only record pay-as-you-go instalments. That saves more than $67 million each year in compliance costs. We want to free up that burden which has long afflicted small business and also to support the creation of a healthy and confident economy and general business sentiment. This is vitally important. In unison, both are conducive to encouraging and fostering the small business spark of sensible and prudent risk-taking, a spark that is all too easily extinguished by ham-fisted government intervention.

Finally, what we are discussing now has a wider and even darker strategic context. After 2008 Australia was indeed fortunate to escape the very worst of the GFC. At the time the current Labor government, perhaps understandably, floundered in their initial response to it but were later much quicker to opportunistically and shamelessly seize credit for saving Australia and to parade themselves as some sort of economic exemplar on the world stage.

More objective pundits were gracious enough to acknowledge that the true foundations of this survival stemmed not from increasing financial handouts to all and sundry but from the creation of a sound economy, the eradication of national debt and the building of a national surplus, which was then available to meet and ameliorate the challenge to Australia and for all Australians. It was a case of conservative foundation building by the Howard government towards a national and enduring strategic financial objective: a truly prosperous Australia. We, the coalition, remain absolutely committed to this goal, which includes this motion and supporting legislation as important milestones on this journey. It therefore gives me much pleasure to support and to second the member for Dobell's motion and to note in closing that its impacts will in no way be confined simply to small business but rather will flow naturally and constructively to the benefit of all Australians.

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