Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

That is an interjection I am happy to take. Let's put it on the record. He said: 'We'—being Labor—'did the wrong thing,' and that is a good acknowledgement. I think you are the first member on your side to acknowledge that. We had the legislation on employee share ownership just a week or so ago, and I will check the Hansard whether you acknowledged it then, but speaker after speaker airbrushed away the catastrophic damage your tax changes in 2009 did to the start-up sector and employee share ownership more generally. I welcome the fact that you acknowledge you did the wrong thing. You were not there at the time, but you were there for a few years in government where at no point did I hear one single Labor member say, 'We did the wrong thing and we've got to fix it,' and fix it when you had the chance, and you have the chance. Maybe you were arguing this in the party room—maybe you were—but, of course, the start-up employee share ownership killer was your shadow Treasurer. He became Treasurer. If he thought he had done the wrong thing, you would have thought that the first thing he would do was do something about it, but he did not. I think the member for Chifley is passionate about this area, as am I, but at least acknowledge that failure. Acknowledge the six lost years—and that is what they have been: six lost years.

Now we are rectifying and rebuilding what Labor wrecked. I am the first say I want to go further—of course—but when it comes to these small-business measures, Labor airbrush away the history of their failure on employee share ownership and start-ups. They were not listening to or quoting the start-up sector then. You would not find too many quotes of the start-up sector from Labor members during their six years in government.

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