Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker—and I would have been happy to second this motion. For the knowledge of the House, Shop Small started in the US some five years ago. It started as Small Business Saturday—a one-day event to encourage shoppers to support small businesses around the time of the GFC. Small Business Saturday still runs in the US, having taken place the weekend before last. What began as a one-day event in the United States five years ago is now a movement that has expanded across the world, including the UK, Canada and Hong Kong, and here in Australia we just saw a month of the Shop Small movement take place.

Shop Small is a national movement which was launched by the Prime Minister last year. I acknowledge the member for Parramatta and the member for Oxley, who joined with me as the co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Small Business, where we launched the program this year. During the month of November shoppers were encouraged to buy from local small businesses and to generally recognise the vital role that mum-and-dad business owners play in the life of their communities and in serving their communities.

Within my electorate of Wright there are over 10,000 local small businesses—that is an enormous number—creating over $1 billion, making them the largest contributing sector to the gross regional product of my electorate. I would like to pay tribute to Amex for sponsoring the small business program in Australia and in particular to Rachel Stocks, the Managing Director for Australia and New Zealand, along with the spearheading team, Luisa Megale, the Vice President Asia, and Jane Drew, the Senior Manager Public Affairs and Communications.

From a local perspective, our chambers of commerce are doing a great job in enhancing and mentoring small businesses in our community. The Boonah Chamber of Commerce will soon be holding its annual street festival parade, which encourages businesses to decorate their shopfronts as we come into the festive season. The community are invited to attend the festival in the main street so that the energies and efforts of businesses are there for all to be seen. Recently the Lockyer Valley Regional Council held its annual business awards, which showcased most of the small businesses and apprentices. It is always amazing to see the diversity of businesses in the Lockyer Valley, given that it is a rich and fertile agricultural precinct, predominantly known for being the best vegetable-growing region in Queensland, and all the allied businesses associated with that sector.

On Friday night the Scenic Rim Regional Council held their annual business awards, again showcasing small business within the larger Scenic Rim area. This is an enormous evening, presided over by the Scenic Rim mayor, John Brent. He is extremely proud of the small businesses in this area, given the constant pressures on small business within farming regions struggling with drought.

Since 2010, however, over 25 per cent of small businesses have left the market because things have been too tough. Recent data from Amex shows that 41 per cent of small businesses surveyed in November said that they do not think they will be around in five years time. As a government, we are trying to recreate the parameters. If you are selling cattle, we have reintroduced the live cattle export markets, which have become such a stimulus for the economy. In the agricultural sector, in particular in my area, we have generated three free trade agreements with Japan, Korea and China, opening up new markets so that we are not subservient to the duopolies that exist with our current retailers. In the manufacturing and industrial sector, over $800 billion worth of approvals have been made through Greg Hunt's office that will ultimately end up in the small business sector. We have cut $2 billion worth of red tape, one of the bugbears of small business, who continually tell me that they are laboured and burdened by red tape.

We are doing our best to get the budget back in control by making the grown-up decisions to stop the boats. We have gotten rid of the carbon tax, which will free up the purse strings of mums and dads in my electorate so that they can invest those savings into small business. We have also gotten rid of the mining tax. This government is doing all it can to support small business.

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