Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman Bill 2015 and consequential and transitional provisions. I had intended to focus particularly on the benefits that come from this, but after the member for MacPherson's contribution I feel I need to respond on behalf of the Labor Party. I am loath to do this on a day when she is wearing maroon and I am wearing maroon. Everybody in the chamber would be supportive of the Maroon's endeavours tonight. Nevertheless, I will return to some of the statements made by the member for MacPherson—not only by the member for McPherson but by other members opposite—about the Labor Party and small business. I will touch on the initial part of the legislation because it makes an important contribution to establishing a small business and family enterprise ombudsman. The ombudsman will assist small businesses in both advocacy and assistance functions, and Labor is supportive of that legislative endeavour. The ombudsman will have extensive powers, including to research and inquire into legislation, policies and practice that affect small business and also to compel persons to give evidence at hearings and provide information and documents to assist in the ombudsman's work.

It is an ombudsman's role that I have looked at in terms of child protection. It is something we do not have yet. What the government has laid out in this, in terms of supporting small business, is certainly something I would like to see rolled out in some other areas that I am involved with because of my shadow policy work. The small business and family enterprise ombudsman can respond to requests for assistance from small businesses and then refer those requests to the appropriate Commonwealth, state or territory agency. There is a strong focus on dispute resolution in the bill, with the ombudsman having powers to publicise that one entity has refused to engage in or has withdrawn from a recommended alternative dispute resolution process. I am all for alternative dispute resolution, even though I have had my own small business and then worked as a lawyer, where most of my clients were small businesses. Obviously, lawyers need to make money. Nevertheless, any sensible person working in government or with legislation wants to avoid legal disputes wherever possible. So alternative dispute resolution is to be commended.

I want to take people to one of the roles. If there are two small businesses, the ombudsman may publicise, in any way that the ombudsman thinks appropriate, that an entity has refused to engage in an alternative dispute resolution process recommended by the ombudsman or has withdrawn from such a process. I understand the intention: to bring parties together to sort out their disputes. That is a good thing. But it would certainly be a strange process if the person responsible for government red tape named a small business because of its behaviour or they decided to go through a legal avenue or something that the ombudsman had not recommended. We will see how that plays out in the future.

I return to some of the comments made by the member for McPherson and other people on the other side about Labor and small business. I know how important small business is, as does the Labor Party. We understand that the number of private sector jobs in Australia connected with small business is nearly 50 per cent. If small business is humming, the Australia that we love and value is humming as well. If small business is lacking in confidence, scared and people are not spending money in small businesses, that is bad. Even if they are putting the money into their mortgages and saving and the like, it is better if money is being circulated through the economy. We understand that. We saw that particularly through the global financial crisis, when Labor responded particularly by going to small business. We saw it towards the end of the six years of the Labor government as well—by supporting small business where we could. For almost the last month, we have the government trying to drive a wedge between what the national interest is and their own interest by suggesting that Labor is not supportive of small business. On so many occasions in this chamber we saw the government suggest that the small business measures in the tax laws amendment were being held up by Labor.

We saw the Prime Minister in question time on 1 June, saying:

With the economy in transition, it is important that these budget measures to help small business get through the parliament as quickly as possible, some small businesses are reluctant to invest until the measure has passed the parliament. I say to the Leader of the Opposition, let us not let politics get in the way of economics. Let us not let self-interest get in the way of national interest. Let us pass this bill straight away.

Those were the actual words of the Prime Minister about small business. But, always, when it comes to the Prime Minister it is not what he says, it is what he does.

We did not have legislation in the chamber at the time. In fact, when the legislation did come into the chamber and the Leader of the Opposition said, 'Let's vote on it right now and get it through,' the government then voted against its own legislation! Why? Because, like security, small business was being used as a political vehicle to create political gain for the government and damage for the Labor Party. There was no focus on the national interest; instead, it was only self-interest. I guess the guy who had 39 people decide to vote against him said, 'I will do anything I can to reach to the extreme and divide the nation rather than lead the nation.'

I understand small business. I know that the member for Lingiari here has run his own small business as well. I come from a small business family: my father was a butcher and a grazier, and he ran abattoirs. Small business is in my blood, like it is for so many people. Whether it be as a lawyer, running a small business, or a lawyer working for a small business, so many people on this side and the other side of the chamber understand small business. So they should not try to carve out that false dichotomy and suggest that only the government supports small business. That is not the case.

We know that when we were in government we did so many things for small business. For example, so many of our policies were then embraced by the government after they got rid of them. That is the reality. I do remember the Prime Minister—the then Leader of the Opposition—saying on the night before the election that there would be no new taxes and no cuts to pensions et cetera. And what did he do? There was a $3.8 billion cut to small business. There was $3.8 billion taken away from small business. The government abolished the tax loss carry back provisions—I think it was at MYEFO, within a month or two of coming to office, that they abandoned those loss carry back provisions and the special depreciation rules for motor vehicles, and they unwound the instant asset write-off. I have not heard one speaker opposite who has stood up to talk about small business apologise to the small businesses in their electorates for what they visited upon their small businesses without warning—without a mandate at all! They just ruled that out and said—

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