Mal Brough (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2015-2016 and related appropriation bills gives us an opportunity to put on the record a range of issues that may be of interest to individual members, and I wish to canvas a few today. The first thing I wish to do is congratulate the government on its announcement of the Federation white paper. This is a time for us to be bold. This is a time for us to reach across the political divide. It is a time for us to say to the states, to local government, to community leaders and to academics that, over the next 10 years, we need to work together for a new and better Federation. Whilst we may stand here today and debate the tos and fros and the rights and wrongs of a budget and whether someone claims a particular sector is better off or worse off—that is the day-to-day grind of politics—the reality is that what set us up over 110 years ago is not going to set us up well into the future.

We have incredible complexity, which reflects itself in an enormous amount of red tape for business, for argument's sake, and that all costs at a local, state and federal government level.

We also have enormous duplication. I am sure that I am not the first person in this place to stand and say why is it that we have some 6,000 bureaucrats in the federal Department of Health, yet we do not provide one doctor or one nurse. I am not suggesting that they do not have some important work to do. What I am saying is: is this the best way, the most cost-effective way, the most efficient way, to deliver services to 22 million Australians? Instead of us looking in a partisan fashion or in a self-interested fashion, whether you are a state politician, a union representative, a federal politician—whatever you may be; whatever your particular grouping is that you seek to support or you seek support from—surely our interest must be the national interest. Like any company, you need to reinvest in your systems, in your governance, in your approach, and if you do not then you end up becoming lazy or you become an irrelevance.

I have just spoken in the other chamber about a mistake made by the Labor Party in 2009 with the employee share ownership scheme. The implications of that are far reaching because the world is moving so fast. I put on the record here today that I am for bold change. I commend the Prime Minister for the Federation white paper. He is going to have this retreat with state leaders. But this needs to be the start of a conversation. We need the journalists to buy into this and to stop this ridiculous notion of ruling things out. Let us be mature enough as a population to have the debate, to acknowledge that what we have had has worked well, but it is not the best fit going forward. It will be hard. It was hard getting a Federation and it took a long time. Western Australia nearly did not play, but they did. Ultimately, if we come together as one, recognising that it is in our nation's interests and every individual's interests, then I think that this sets us up well for the future.

I turn to a related issue, and that is how we fund infrastructure. Again, the government released a paper last week on infrastructure—where to, a plan and what we hope to achieve. We always see the argy-bargy. I heard the member for Grayndler on Brisbane radio the other day. It was amazing; he was quite plausible until, of course, the full story was told. He was saying that he had offered the Queensland LNP government a 50-50 split on a particular bridge. You go, 'Why didn't they take that up?' But then the former minister got on and he said, 'Well, there was a bit of catch.' Traditionally, the federal government spends 80 per cent on Highway 1—in our case the Bruce Highway—and the state 20 per cent and they wanted to make it 50-50. So unless you have all the facts about who is paying, states can be worse off or better off. I only use that to highlight the fact that all the debate is about how much more money we are going to need without looking at what innovation can do to help us change the debate. Let me put on the record that obviously we are going to have to continue to invest more in infrastructure—rail, ports, roads, in particular, but also telecommunications.

In the last two years people have heard more and more about Uber. I just want to put this as an example on the table of how we should be looking at this debate from a different perspective. They operate their share riding scheme in four major cities around the world. They are not the only one. There is another company—Lyft—operating in San Francisco. They have found that in some suburbs they are now getting a 90 per cent uplift of share rides. In every ride coming out of those suburbs someone else is sharing with them. Just think about that for a moment, rather than thinking about taxis versus Uber or someone else. Think about the implications of better utilising the number of cars that we have on the road. How many of our motor vehicles going into Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth every morning have one occupant? If we are able to do something which does not cost the taxpayer anything to ensure that there are two or three people in those cars going to the same destination, what do we do? We reduce congestion, we reduce pollution and it does not cost anybody anything. So we are saying, not instead of but in concert with, let us open our mind to what technology is providing in real-time today. As I said, it is an extraordinary statistic. In some suburbs up to 90 per cent of all rides are share rides. They are operating in Paris, San Francisco and LA. I put that on the table as a way for policy makers to think outside the circle. It is more than just roads, rail and ports; it is about other alternatives.

While on all things digital—obviously, without the internet you do not have Uber or Lyft—I want to put a policy position forward to the government. Right now, Australia has an enviable reputation for people coming here to study. Today, as I said, with bipartisan support we are going to implement positive changes to the employee share ownership scheme. That will enable more of our start-up companies to keep our innovators here. We have people who come to Australia to learn computer software. They are engineers and coders. They finish their courses and leave the country. What we could be doing is using their skill set here in Australia. They could be starting their own business or working with another start-up. Instead of time limiting it—where always in the backs of the minds of the owners and entrepreneurs is, 'I invest in this person, give them the skill sets I need and immerse them in my business, but in six months, 12 months or two years they've got to go'—why don't we make sure that we use this intellect that we have helped develop through our education system and say, 'You can stay here as long as you are investing and working in a start-up of either your own or someone else's'? If we do that, we will be creating the innovative pull that the world wants. Israel, France and the US all want it. These people are here now; we have trained them. A very easy and simple policy shift would allow these people to stay and contribute to our economy and to grow our innovation sector. That is another policy that we can put on the table.

This budget was unabashedly aimed directly at the core of Australia's small business community. I am sure that many of the speakers before me have outlined the positive nature of those investments and the impact they will have in their electorates. I see this as an important step forward, in fact a momentous change in the way in which we look at small business. We all talk about it—both sides of the chamber talk about it—but we actually have to deliver. By now identifying through the tax system businesses earning under $2 million and seeing them in a different light, we have put some meat on the bone. They are different to large businesses. They do not have HR departments; they do not have marketing departments; all is generally done by mum and dad and one or two others. We are burdening them with all of the regulatory costs, the labour costs and the costs of raising capital—because quite often they pay a premium to the banks for being small businesses—but we can do something about that. What I propose here today is that the nexus has been broken. We have recognised and rewarded, once and for all, the significance in employment terms and in energy and innovation that comes out of the small business sector, whether they are rural companies or start-ups or in the medical field or a coffee shop. Now what we can do is build on that. Why don't we be brave enough to look at removing some of the really big, burdensome compliance costs such as fringe benefits tax for any company of under $2 million income? It is not going to cost the budget a lot, but, I tell you what: it will give people another reason to say, 'I should be involved.' Under the Howard government, we made businesses of under 15 employees, rather than businesses earning under $2 million, exempt from unfair dismissal. Why don't we again look at the wages that they pay in giving young people jobs and build on the initiatives that we have put into this budget? We are allowing an unemployed person to get real-life experience. Why don't we start investing some more of what the Commonwealth already contributes to businesses under $2 million? We want them to grow beyond that, but this gets their foot in the door. This gets them established. This gets them to say to the world, 'This place actually wants people to get started and wants to contribute,' so all of those regional towns and outer suburbs can become hubs of innovation and energy.

These are just some of the things that I think we should all be looking at across the chamber. Sadly, in the debate in the main chamber on employee share ownership it actually came back to an ideology. The shadow Assistant Treasurer is an economist and professor in his own right, but the reason he gave for the Labor Party in 2009 instigating this negative policy—which they now acknowledge—was that it would be unfair to lower-paid workers. When are we going to get over this cringe and say, 'We want everyone to be uplifted; we want to give everyone the opportunity to participate'? The way to do that is not by degrading or denying someone because they have an intellect or a spark. We all contribute according to our own abilities. Take that out of their language, take that out of their thinking and ask, 'What's good for Australia?'

Coming back to this budget, it is a good down payment on the future, but the real future is going to be how we do these big things: how we reform our federation, how we put aside our state-based biases, our political affiliations and look at the sort of Australia that we want our grandchildren to have—to have that long-term future. I believe there are people on both sides of this chamber who are capable of that. I think there are state leaders who are capable of that. But they have to remain true to the course. They now have the option because that document is out there. We have the tools with which to commence the debate. Let us not allow it to flounder on the rocks of negativity or fear—fear that someone will be worse off, someone may be disadvantaged. There is always going to be a rocky road on the way to a better future. It was not easy getting the GST implemented. Do you hear anyone from the other side of politics today saying we should get rid of the GST? No, not at all. Far from it. They have recognised, however begrudgingly, that it served a purpose.

We need to have all of these things—whether it be taxation, regulation or duplication—on the table, without the journalists coming up and sticking a microphone under someone's nose and asking, 'Will you rule it out?' and therefore dumbing down the debate. Let us rise above it. Let us give people the sort of government they want and the sort of politics that they want, and let this generation of politicians be seen to have built on what our forefathers established with the federation and make this moment in time an opportunity to grow the federation in a way that serves our children and grandchildren well.

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