Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

You hear that because the answers to this are government. The answer to more jobs in the future is government. I can tell you right now there is more money. There is venture capital money. There is money to be invested in this country, and they are looking for people with ideas. They are looking for people who have opportunities and know what they want to do, and they are not looking at government.

It is like the show The Shark Tank. 'Don't come to me; go to the government. Go and get co-investment from them. That's a good idea.' That is how they think. So what should we do as a government? Obviously, government plays a role. It is not in the sad ideas from the other side coming, as you might expect, from people who have never invested their own money in other people's jobs or had an idea that has employed other people. The important things we are doing as a government are the important things that are important to small businesses, as many people on this side keep saying because they have been in small business and employed people in small business, employing people from their own ideas, employing people from their own money.

What is this government doing to plan for jobs of the future? There are many things. I only have three minutes left and could probably go for three hours talking about the things this government has done to plan for the future. One—and they think it is just a bit of a sideshow—is whenever we have the red tape repeal days. It is not a sideshow; it is essential to the viability and the productivity of many small businesses, because what can they do when they do not have as much red tape? They employ more people doing productive things.

What else have we done as a government? Obviously, we have just introduced probably the best budget for small business this country has seen in decades. What do tax cuts do for business? They give them more opportunity to employ more people. The tax write-off has been spoken about. If there is one thing I think we have wrong in the budget—and I am happy to admit it—it is that I think the take-up of this $20,000 tax write-off will be bigger than we think. And you know what? That is a good thing because that is small business people out there employing with their own ideas and encouraging job growth in this country.

What else have we done? Obviously, we have the free trade agreements. Let's not forget those. The free trade agreements are increasing jobs in my community as we speak. As we know, we have to be a competitive country because we are into exports and we are an open economy looking for export markets.

Honourable members interjecting—

It's very competitive to speak in here! And the free trade agreements are helping businesses big and small in my community to employ more people because they have more markets, they are selling more products and that has been good for job growth in this country. The other side could not close it off.

The other speaker earlier mentioned the employee share schemes. Gee, that was a brilliant idea from an ex-political staffer. Let's tax people before they can realise the money from an employee share scheme. Whoever's brain dead idea that was: that worked! I might have to skip a few pages here. I can go for three hours but had three minutes.

Again, what I get and what is, unfortunately, reinforced whenever we have debates like this in this House is that the other side always thinks the government is a genius. Government knows what to do. We should be co-investing, we should be doing this and we should be doing that. Like everything, the answer to most things is not in this chamber. The answer is not us investing in small business. The answer, as always, is for us to get out of the way, is for us to encourage the men and women of Australia who have great ideas, great opportunities and are putting their capital and their ideas on the line. We are here to support them by getting out of the way.

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