Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I am very interested to hear some of the comments made by the previous speaker, the member for Oxley, in relation to small business and his support for some of the initiatives that the government is doing. I have the greatest respect for the member for Oxley. He might not know that. In a previous life, prior to becoming a member of parliament, in 1998 he worked as an aircraft electrician with the Royal Australian Air Force. Anybody who works with the RAAF is indeed worthy of my respect, as a member who represents the only inland city in Australia with all three arms of the Defence and Forest Hill RAAF Base, which the member for Oxley I know is very familiar with. I can hear him say he is very familiar with it and I am very interested to hear that.

I hasten to add though, however, that he ought not lecture this government on its small business record and indeed its small-business ministers because Craig Emerson; Senator Nick Sherry; Senator Mark Arbib; the current member for Gorton, Brendan O'Connor; the current member for McMahon, Chris Bowen; and the current member for Brand, Gary Gray all held the portfolio of small-business minister during those six sorry years of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government. The member for McMahon was there but for a short 49 days. The member for Dunkley, the current Minister for Small Business—in fact the 15th since the position became a ministry in 1988—has been there already one year 264 days and what a difference he has made. He has done more in that one year and 264 days, I would argue, than the previous six Messrs Emerson, Sherry, Arbib, Bowen, O'Connor and Gray did in the six years.

Just today the Senate approved the cut of 1.5 per cent to the tax rate for small business—

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