Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As I was saying, following the budget the Treasurer and I visited one such business, Briki Espresso and Gelati Bar in the suburb of Ironside. There we met Sav Ermides, who told us that the depreciation changes in the budget will help him to expand his cafe and also buy a new oven so that he can serve more customers and grow his business. Mr Ermides is one of thousands of such stories among the 13,000 registered small businesses in my electorate and the hundreds of thousands more across Australia. This policy is already making a real difference to small businesses.

These days it is a cliche to say that small business is the engine room of the economy, but nevertheless the numbers back it up. Small businesses produce more than $330 billion of our nation's economic output every year. Better yet, they employ more than 4.5 million Australians. Businesses such as Brookfield Gardens, a family-owned garden retailer in my electorate that now boasts a restaurant addition. Robin and Scott McLay have a passion for gardening and have built a successful local business that demonstrates their passion and expertise. They are a great small business success story. Then there is the French patisserie at the Cat and Fiddle shopping centre in Toowong. They have been a family run business since 1984, making delightful pastry desserts as well as quiches that are a weekend lunch staple for my family. And businesses such as Kenmore Gallery and Picture Framing, run by well-known Ryan local Liz Barker with more than 30 years of industry experience.

As I speak to people across the electorate of Ryan, I am hearing more and more stories of new families investing in existing small businesses—a positive reaction to a recharged economy, where a more optimistic mood is encouraging people to take that step into their own business. Like Cave Coffee Espresso Bar at Keperra. It has always served great coffee and has been revitalised under new ownership. I am particularly looking forward to the planned redecoration, which will very much reflect the new owner's heritage. Fancy That Boutique, a business with a 30-year history in The Gap Village, is a fine example of an established small business that has had a new lease on life under the stewardship of a new owner. Paula Johnston, having previously had a corporate career, bought it four years ago and is carrying on the hard-working traditions of the original owners, the Watkins family, with her fabulous range of clothing. Blackwood Street in Mitchelton is experiencing a renewal with a number of businesses changing over as people retire or take up new challenges. The local post office franchise is one case in point. Mitchelton Newsagency is another, with Rod and Cathie Palmer retiring after 12 years as invaluable and energetic members of the local chamber of commerce and wider community. And there is the Taverner Lounge, where Kim and Grant Limburg have taken over and are well and truly putting their own stamp on that business. These are all fine examples of local small businesses with new owners willing to give it a go.

Ryan is an electorate full of small businesses and when one small business succeeds, then the flow-on effects boost the wider local economy. More than 90 per cent of all businesses headquartered in Ryan have a turnover of below $2 million and will therefore be eligible for the tax cuts and franking changes outlined in this bill.

If only half of the small businesses in Australia employed just one more person each, we would no longer have any unemployment problems. That is why it is so important that the small business sector be incentivised to invest and grow and why the coalition government stands side by side with small business to make it easier for them to do just that. The contrast between this government and Labor governments past could not be more stark. Labor saddled this country with 21,000 new and amended regulations, drowning the small business sector in red tape. Under Labor, 519,000 jobs were lost in small business. They had five different small business ministers in one 15-month period. Kim Beazley said it best when he admitted in 2000:

We have never pretended to be a small business party, the Labor Party, we have never pretended that.

Compare Labor's actions to this bill, which demonstrates that the coalition government is serious about sorting out Labor's mess and getting the small business sector back on the path to growth and prosperity. This bill delivers a real and immediate benefit to small businesses across Australia. I urge all members, and particularly those opposite, to do the right thing in the interests of 780,000 eligible small businesses across Australia and support this bill. I commend the bill to the House.

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