Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to speak on the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman Bill 2015 and related bill. Because I have an abiding interest in small business, I note that the minister is in the House and I want to congratulate him on being a minister for small business rather than a minister who talks about small business. The minister came to my electorate before the last federal election and outlined a number of things to my small business owners. I am very grateful that he has delivered on those outcomes, and this bill is one of those outcomes. The changes the government are proposing are yet another example of our commitment and the minister's commitment to providing small business with the right regulatory and legislative environment to grow and prosper.

Small business is of interest to members on this side, and, if we have a look at the speaking list, we find that only a handful of people from the other side are interested in talking about small business. It just demonstrates which side of the House is the friend of small business. When I spoke on the small business bill last time we were in this chamber it was the same thing. I mentioned that this side of the House has a diverse background in terms of its members and many of them are from a small-business background. There is only a handful on the other side. Of course we are interested in making sure that people in small business know who their friend and their advocate is—and it is the coalition, the government.

The member for Oxley was in here touting that he was some sort of hero of small business. That is an absolute joke because Labor's record on small businesses is woeful. I will bring a few statistics to the attention of the House. After six years of the chaotic Rudd-Gillard-Rudd rule, we saw 519,000 jobs lost in small business—that is an indictment. That means that 1,500, or thereabouts, hard-working Australians per week lost their job due to Labor's inability to culture, provide the environment and nurture small businesses to operate and flourish in this country. They had six different ministers for small business. They would have said, 'Oh, my God, who's got small business this month? Don't tell me I've got small business. How're we going to deal with that? I don't know anything about it. What are they giving me small business for?' That is the difference.

Those opposite, for years, talked about cutting the company tax rate, but they never did, yet they made promises. You guessed it, the company tax rate was cut a grand total of zero times while Labor were in office. As usual, they did not back-up any of their policies. It might have been in the third term of the chaotic Rudd-Gillard-Rudd rule, but they never got there, as we know. It is interesting to note that, when Labor took office in 2007, they were left with a country that ranked 68th on the global competitive index in terms of the level of government regulation imposed on business. After six years of Labor's mismanagement Australian businesses were well and truly suffocating under red tape and bureaucracy and, unsurprisingly, Australia slipped from 68th to 128th on that register. The statistics speak for themselves. In fact, Labor introduced more than 21,000 new and amended regulations during their time in government. It was a very busy time, that six years, to be putting in that number of regulations. Yet, they have the audacity to stand here and tell us that they are the friend of small business. No, thank you, you are not—we are.

This bill creates the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman. The role is multifaceted and will provide a range of services for Australian small businesses, especially the mum-and-dad investors who do not have time to deal with and manage complex regulation and red tape in addition to operating their business. The ombudsman will consult with small business and family enterprises for the purpose of better informing the government on policies to ensure that our reforms have the greatest impact to those on the ground. So, it is an information and a regulatory function. The ombudsman will also work to identify systemic issues in the small business sector requiring a national approach and provide advice to government on these matters. This new ombudsman, who is properly funded to run his operations, will have real power. It is not lip-service.

I stand here, as I have said previously in this place, as somebody who has tried the small business route. My wife and I had a bakery. I will not go on about that too much. At the end of the day when you are in small business you are at the mercy of so many people. The shopping centre management are probably the worst. If you are in a major shopping centre, the management can up your rates and tell you to paint your shop or put on a new shopfront because you have signed on the bottom line. In our case they decided to redevelop the shopping centre and we lost two-thirds of our customers because no-one could park. When we went to the shopping centre management and said, 'We need some relief, as happens in other shopping centres,' they told us to read the contract. We actually had a ratchet clause in it, so not only were we not getting relief but we were actually paying more while we were losing money. We could not get any help or assistance.

How do you get relief there? You go to SAT, the tribunal. It is meant to be a non-legalistic tribunal. Their threat to us was: 'Take us on, sunshine, because we will take you all the way to the Supreme Court. We never lose. We will deliberately do it so we can make an example of you. No other small business in our shopping centre will take us on.' This ombudsman would be able to give advice and show some direction. Dare I say, if the ombudsman had rung the shopping centre management and let them know that he was watching our case, it might have made them pull their head in a bit.

I suspect this legislation, through the ombudsman's function, will have a mind to the poor old franchisees who are suffering at the hands of large franchisers, who package them up with a whole range of terms and conditions. Many people go into it starry-eyed and looking at the blue sky. They have no idea before they start but suddenly find they have a huge amount of compliance and a whole lot of delivery outcomes they never dreamt that they would have.

I have personally represented some of these people. I have rung their companies and told them I am a member of parliament trying to help my constituents and they said, 'We don't care who you are.' If they are saying that to me as an elected representative of the people, how does the poor little businessman trying to turn a quid in their franchise go when they take on the huge multinational? I will give you an example, and this is in the Hansard from some years ago. Lenard's chicken are a prime example. In my office I had a meeting with the Perth franchisers of Lenard's chicken, a company based in Queensland. They are real standover merchants. People were essentially going broke because the franchisers would come into their business and demand they sell chicken at a price that was less than they were buying it for and those sorts of things. Eventually it got to the extent that I had to bring these people into my office to have a meeting with them. I sat them down to try to get some resolution and an outcome going forward. I suspect this legislation now is going to provide a resolution for that.

In this case one of the ladies was a policewoman who had invested in a Lenard's chicken franchise. They were really threatening people, and you will find out why in a moment. I had to get the state protection security police to sit in my office while this was going on because even the policewoman was scared of being in this intimidatory position with her master franchisor. Interestingly, as history will tell you, the two people were gay lovers and one killed the other one. He is in jail now. That is the sort of people they were dealing with.

At the end of the day small business needs protection from predatory people like this, from shopping centres and from financiers. A lot of people go into these things underfinanced and suddenly start using their own bankcard to pay the wages of their people. It accumulates. They need some advice on how to get through the maze of regulation that hits them in a shopping centre in terms of their lease. There is a whole lot of taxation. After they have spent all week working they spend the weekend sitting at home doing their books. These are the sorts of people we are talking about. We are going to give them protection under this legislation.

I stand here today to say to the people in my electorate of Canning: 'We have a resolution for you.' In Canning we have something like 10,000 small businesses. You will see quite often a sign go up saying that they are in business. Some of them do not last more than six or 12 months, and that shop never gets filled again. Those people have essentially gone broke. I feel so sorry for them because quite often they have put their house on the line as collateral and then they lose their house and have to start again.

I congratulate the minister for bringing this legislation to the House today. It will provide protection, guidance and a way of getting disputes resolved for people who do not know where to go for help. I have a message for the people of Australia, particularly those in the electorate of Canning. I know the minister is soon going to come and talk to some of my constituents and the local chambers of business. We are going to be able to say to the small businesses: 'We know how you feel. We know what is hurting you. We know what you need in terms of protection and advice, and this legislation gives it to you.' I commend the bills today and I thank the House.

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