Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I associate myself with the member for Forrest's comments about the Treasury Legislation Amendment (Small Business and Unfair Contract Terms) Bill 2015. Coles, as a business, was established in my electorate in the very small town of Wilmot in the far north-west of Tasmania. Tragically, 18 months ago the original Coles shop burnt down. Apart from the history that was lost, the tragic circumstances of that fire have created huge difficulties for the local community there. It is a small town with, essentially, no other businesses. It has really taken a huge effort by many people within that small community to offer even the most basic of services such as access to bread and milk, postal services and the other things that that business provided.

In my former life I was involved in a lamb export business. We had a customer in North America. It was a branded Tasmanian lamb project. We were able to offer the consumers in the New England part of North America a product that was traceable back to the individual farmers concerned. I remember well that at the time we were able to provide a better price to the producers concerned. The final sellers had a point of difference in the marketplace that they were able to take advantage of with the restaurants they supplied and also with retailers. It was a very small project—only about 300 lambs per week. We were not, unfortunately, able to get them killed in Tasmania, so we found an abattoir in Victoria. The abattoir involved was also a major contractor, as it happened, to Coles. We were not competing. We were going to an export market; Coles were using this abattoir for their domestic market. After six months of it going very well—it was not easy; it is never easy in business, Mr Deputy Speaker Broadbent, as you well know—we were advised that we would no longer be able to use that particular facility. It was suggested that the processor involved was given an ultimatum: it was either us—and we were a very small proportion of their weekly kill—or the customer that they simply could not do without. They were left with no choice at all. This example goes to the heart of this bill—the small business portfolio more broadly and, specifically, unfair contract terms.

The purpose of this bill is to provide small businesses with the same provisions that individual consumers have. For a consumer with a contract with, for example, Telstra—or others—if there are terms within the contract that are unfair and are deemed to be unfair, there are provisions within the Competition and Consumer Act that allow individuals to contest or dispute that. That is less the case for small business. In essence, that is what this bill goes to. Additional funding of $1.5 million has been provided to the ATO for the implementation of this bill.

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