Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, if we can just see how many people on the coalition side have been involved in small business. I think we can see that it is quite an involvement. But if we pose the same question to the Labor Party side—how many of you have owned a small business or run a small business?

Opposition members interjecting—

One! I have to give it to you—there is one, two. That is great. So it is not surprising that they just do not get it. To them, they theorise about it, they observe it from a great distance, but they have not been a participant in small business. They do not hold that zeal that we hold on this side that you can be the master of your own ship and not be run by big unions or big business—to, basically, make your own way in the world. That is, in essence, what takes people into the National Party and the Liberal Party.

We can see it even now in discussions with people such as Lia Mahony of the Tamworth chamber of commerce and in how interested they are to make sure that we provide a marketplace which gives them a better place to get better protections for pharmacies, for fuel distributors and for all those who make up our side of the political fence. (Time expired)

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