Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

The minister thinks he is really clever by saying, 'You do not want to talk about that.' I do not want to talk about it anymore than has already been done, because small business needs to be uplifted. Let us have a bit of uplifting, in this place. Let us have a bit of lifting of confidence. Let us have, for once, the simplicity of the government saying, 'The small-business budget measures are good. Labor thinks they are good. Labor will support them.' Labor will get on with it. We are not standing in the road.

How many more days? I am counting the days: 22 days; 23 days. We are not going to get through it this week, so it will be 25 days, 26 days and 30 days, and the government still will not have passed its own measures. When will the government step up to the plate? When will the government do the right thing by small business ? When will the government restore confidence? When will the Liberal Party and the National Party stand up for small-business people in this country? When will they pass their own bills? Let us tick off how many more days we have to wait for the government to pass its own bills. Labor stands here ready, right now. Pass the bills.

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