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

I would like to very much thank the member for Deakin for this question, because he is a very, very strong advocate for small business in his community of Deakin. He understands the importance of those men and women who are entrepreneurial and enterprising, how significantly they contribute to the Australian economy—more than $340 billion each and every year, employing more than 4.7 million Australians. I have got good news for the member for Deakin, because on Friday of last week the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed that there had been an increase in the number of small businesses, by more than 21,500 small businesses nationally. It is even better news in Victoria—more than 8,600 small businesses.

These are very important figures because this is the second consecutive year that we have seen an increase in the number of small businesses. It compares pretty dramatically to Labor, because we saw a drop in the number of small businesses during the final year of the previous Labor government. What it demonstrates is that our plan is working—our plan to deliver instant asset write-offs to small businesses, of up to $20,000, which is helping small businesses to invest in themselves; a company tax cut of 1.5 per cent for small businesses; a five per cent discount for unincorporated entities; free trade agreements for small businesses who are looking to expand their markets overseas—three of them, to Japan, to South Korea and to China; and the ability of small businesses to immediately deduct their professional expenses in setting up a small business. These are just some of the measures that we know are working today. And that is before you take into account some changes that passed the Senate only today that will allow small businesses to restructure themselves where there is the same owner and not trigger capital gains tax liabilities.

These things are helping small businesses but we know that confidence can be pretty fragile with small business. While conditions overall have been firmly above the five-year average, according to the ACCI survey results in December, we know that Labor's policies would directly impact negative gearing by ensuring it will undermine the value of more than $5.6 trillion in residences in Victoria. That would directly impact small businesses because small business men and women rely on their properties for their wealth and 14 per cent of them actually have mortgages. So Labor's policy would have a reckless and damaging impact on small business owners and damage the Australian economy.

See this speech in context