Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Treasury Legislation Amendment (Repeal Day) Bill 2014. I acknowledge the contribution of the member for Tangney and his knowledge of the challenges that small businesses face in this country today. Since coming to office, this government has been committed to doing what it can to tackle red tape and tackle the burden that business is confronted with every day in getting on with the business of business. I am proud to say that I have spoken previously on this subject, on the first repeal day, which we had in the autumn this year, and more recently. In every portfolio area, each responsible minister and each department has been asked to do their bit. Truly, the work that Parliamentary Secretary Frydenberg has done in this area is an absolute credit to him in being able to coordinate across so many portfolio areas all of those, admittedly, small things in many cases—but small things add up to big things and this is about ultimately making it easier for Australians to get on with their day-to-day lives but also businesses to get on with the business of business.

There has been a range of measures since the first repeal day. In respect of Treasury, which is the focus of the debate tonight, there has been a range of measures—some with savings to the budget, admittedly. But, more importantly, the objective here always is, and always has been, right from day one—from 8 September 2013—to give business the capacity to do what they do best, and that is to get on with business and employ Australians.

We have been doing things such as amending the franchising code of conduct and exempting tradable water rights from the definition of derivatives under the Corporations Act 2001. I had a career in the wool industry at one time and I was once called up by the ACCC. I remember the managing director ringing me on a Friday night. He said, 'Can you give me a little bit of information?' We were offering an over-the-counter product and it was thought, under the Corporations Act at the time, to be walking very close to an area where you needed to be able to give advice in respect of futures contracts. Interestingly, we subsequently found out that it was one of our competitors that raised the issue with the managing director. We sorted that out. Fortunately, neither he nor I had to spend any time in the big house. But it was an interesting conversation on that Friday night; I remember it well.

We have done things such as reduce and clarify the APRA compliance measures, which will save the budget, over the forward estimates, $13.4 million in compliance costs. We have simplified the tax return lodgement through MyGov credentials. We have streamlined the income tax returns using MyTax. Keeping superannuation trustees' websites up to date has meant an annual saving of $29½ million. There have been so many measures, and this is one of those measures.

This measure in this legislation is part of those measures which, since we came to government, have amounted to a saving of $2 billion. That has well exceeded the $1 billion that we thought we could do—the election commitment that we made. We have delivered on the election commitment twice over now. There have been 57,000 pieces of legislation removed from the statute books across every portfolio.

I will go to the focus of the bill before the House tonight. It is not so much the large corporates in this country that will benefit from some of the amendments, although the amendments are relatively small. The large corporates have the systems. They have the HR departments. They have the payroll offices. They have the staff and the software to be able to make those adjustments to payslips, or to report on those payslips, or to handle multiple superannuation funds, for example. Those things are quite simple for larger corporates like the one that I spent much of the last 15 or 16 years working with.

The impact here is really on small businesses. They have the extra cost of updating the software—if they even have that software available to them. Many small and micro businesses do their payrolls manually still. If they have multiple employees there may well be multiple superannuation funds. It is right and proper that people have choice but it may well be problematic for the small business.

There are unnecessary burdens that are placed on small businesses. Small businesses form the engine room of our nation. It is interesting to reflect on the six years of the previous Labor government with respect to small business. There were five ministers responsible for the engine room of our nation. There were more small business failures under the previous administration, and fewer start-ups. To me that reflects, ultimately, on confidence. In the case of those long six years, the number of start-ups of small businesses in this country decreased enormously. I think that that reflected the chaos and confusion that Australians felt about the direction that this country was going in.

We need entrepreneurs in this country. We need people who are prepared to risk their own capital to follow the dream of no longer being an employee but being one's own boss. While I have never run my own small business, my wife has. She has recently sold her business and she is like a cat on a hot tin roof. She is on wages at the moment and she is beside herself, but that—I hope—will not last for too much longer.

In respect of the small business portfolio one of the election commitments that we made was that we would see the minister responsible for small business put into cabinet. And what a fine job Minister Billson is doing in that area! There were a number of commitments that we made—not least of all, making the process of tendering for government procurements easier. Those processes were designed so that only the large corporates in this country could tender for that business. But that has changed. I have had personal experience of that, even within the Defence portfolio. Within my electorate, a constituent put a proposal to the Defence department. Initially that proposal was sent back. They said, 'Look, we suggest you contact these private businesses.' However, since coming to government, they have been asked to make a presentation, because they are reviewing their whole procurement policy around making sure that small and medium enterprises have an opportunity to participate in the large amounts of money that government spends each year in procuring from the private sector.

Indeed, one of the other commitments we made in respect of small business was the root and branch review of competition. I will say that I do not think the minister is making too many friends within the banking sector or within the big retail end of town. But it was a commitment and there is nobody who is more dedicated to the task of making sure that large supermarkets deal with their suppliers in a way that is consistent with what I think every Australian would consider fair and reasonable practice. It is about making sure that small businesses are not precluded from supplying some of the bigger retailers, if they are competitive and have a product to offer.

The work that is being done on the Franchising Code of Conduct is very important for many businesses around Australia. When the franchisor and franchisee go to the wedding, so to speak, with starry eyes and a look of love their eyes, only to realise a few weeks or a year later that it was pretty well a one-way street and not a partnership at all but was actually being dictated to. This is about getting some balance back into that.

I note the member for Tangney's comment about bringing business into government It is certainly not the business of government to be getting into business. That is essentially what we have tried to do right from day one with the things that we made commitments to the Australian people about before the election to ultimately reinvigorate this nation with our Economic Action Strategy as the first stanza of measures to clean up the horrible mess we were left with.

None of us like this challenge. It is not an easy thing to do. It is always much easier in the business I was involved in to say yes to a client. But it was often very difficult to say no. But if it was the right thing to do, often, saying no straight up-front was the best time to say no. Indeed, it is easy to say yes but difficult to say no. None of us like this challenge, but by Jove we are up for it.

Having been a member for 14 months, if I were to reflect over that time, what is astounding to me is how those on the other side have tried to re-write history. I do not think I have ever seen such absolute denial about the carnage and damage that was done to our nation during those six years. It is as if the current government had a clean sheet of paper on 8 September 2013. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was not a clean sheet of paper. We inherited the sixth largest deficit this nation has ever seen—the sixth largest deficit delivered by the Labor Party and their mates, the Greens, in the last three years. Over the forward estimates we were left with $132 billion of cumulative deficits. Do nothing, and we were looking at a figure of $667 billion—a figure of $100,000 for every family of four. Those here today and those born tomorrow—within the next 10 years. It is $25,000 for every man, woman and child. It was not a clean sheet. The previous government had the best terms of trade this nation has ever seen They squandered it. Yes, we have some challenges with revenue. The previous government did not have challenges with revenue. They had problems with their spending. Every household knows that if you spend more than you are earning you are going nowhere. You are in real trouble. We are determined to fix the problem. We are up for this challenge. I say that on behalf of everybody on this side. Make no mistake about it. We do not like what we have to do. There is no joy in it, but we are up to the challenge.

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