Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

I very much thank the member for Robertson for her question on behalf of the president of the chamber of commerce. The member for Robertson, of course, is well-known in this place for being an incredibly strong advocate for small business. In fact, she has some 10,000 small businesses in her electorate and we discuss matters around small business from time to time.

I can assure not only the member for Robertson but the president of the chamber of commerce that we are incredibly focused on creating the right environment for small business to thrive. Only this week we made the announcement—an election commitment—of the appointment of Kate Carnell as the very first Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman. Kate Carnell is a former small business woman herself, and she will have significant resources and an office to ensure that she can be a concierge for dispute resolution in small business, that she can be an advocate for small business and she can ensure that the regulations and Commonwealth laws are designed to enhance small business.

Speaking of those laws, there is no bigger frustration for small business than red tape and regulation that gets in the way of them conducting their small business. We as a government have got rid of more than $4.5 billion worth of unnecessary red tape and regulation, and, again, only just this week, we introduced into the parliament legislation that will make it easier for those small businesses that want to change their structure to do that without triggering a tax liability. This will allow those small businesses to do, as the member for Robertson has suggested, what we want them to do, which is to innovate, be flexible and be nimble.

We want small business to continue to be the powerhouse in the Australian economy. Small business contributes more than $340 billion to our economy and employs more than 4.5 million Australians. That is why we are making sure we are doing our bit by cutting tax for small business—a 1.5 per cent company tax cut—and that is critical for small business. But we know that 70 per cent of those small businesses are in fact unincorporated entities, and we have for them a five per cent discount on the tax that they are paying. This means that they have more money in their pocket to invest in their small business, and when they invest in their small business they grow their small business, and when they grow their small business they create jobs, and, in creating jobs, we create a stronger economy.

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