Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

The government has introduced an omnibus bill which puts together all the government's savings measures and which we hope and fervently believe Labor will support to help us with the amount of debt repair this nation needs to do not just for people enjoying the benefits of a great Australian lifestyle now but for their kids and their grandkids. The budget bottom line that Labor outlined during the recent election campaign relied on more than $6 billion in coalition savings that they have not reversed, including $3 billion in measures that the Labor Party previously opposed. This follows Labor's backflips on the pension assets test and on the schoolkids bonus. This side of parliament is prepared to work constructively with Labor and the crossbenches to pass these necessary measures.

The Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2016-2017 is important. Bill Shorten, the member for Maribyrnong, says he wants to work together in the parliament. He said on the first day that he wants it to be a more conciliatory parliament. We have not seen that yet. The test will be whether he supports the measures bills that we are putting forward or whether he just keeps on playing political games, keeps on with the stunts.

The government is taking action to necessarily repair the budget by progressing $40 billion worth of unlegislative saves from the previous terms, including revenue increases. The passage of these measures is an absolute legislative and economic priority. The budget savings omnibus bill includes more than $6 billion of these measures, including five from this year's budget. The omnibus bill takes steps towards demonstrating immediate and tangible progress towards, as I said before, absolute, imperative and necessary fiscal repair. Unlegislative measures are obscuring the challenge facing the nation. They represent an important opportunity to get the debt back in control. Parliament has to demonstrate it is willing to take immediate, necessary and, importantly, tangible steps towards this repair work.

Repairing the budget is challenging but necessary. We cannot go on just having populist policies and making sure that everybody is placated. We have to take some tough measures. Ratings agencies have stated that the AAA credit rating is at risk, and we all know what happens if that AAA credit rating is lowered. The downgrade would have flow-on consequences for the entire economy.

There has been much said about our jobs and growth strategy during the election campaign. I cannot understand why Labor continues to mock and to knock the jobs and growth. They say it is a three-word slogan, but we have to have jobs. As we heard in question time today, we have improved the employment prospects for many. There were more than 200,000 jobs created, the Prime Minister said, in a very short space of time. He mentioned that the unemployment rate was down to 5.7 per cent. He said that this was too high—it is—but we are working towards getting that down even further.

And growth. Of course we have had a growth strategy which has been, I have to say, enhanced by the defence industry white paper announced in February this year. I am pleased that the Minister for Defence Industry is in the chamber. The white paper has an unprecedented investment in Australia's defence capability of about $195 billion over the next decade. My electorate benefited to the tune of almost $1 billion from that. There are important upgrades for the Army recruit training centre at Army Recruit Training Centre Kapooka, where every soldier goes and does their basic training. That important facility is going to benefit considerably by more than $400 million worth of investment. The outgoing commandant, Colonel Steve Jobson, is delighted, was delighted, will continue to be delighted by that investment. There is the Royal Australian Air Force base at Forest Hill. If you spend any amount of time in the blue uniform in Australia, you will end up at that important strategic training base. It is going to benefit to the tune of $440 million over the next decade and beyond.

I am delighted that inland rail is going ahead in the budget. Treasurer Scott Morrison announced that $594 million was going to go towards securing the important rail corridor with some land acquisition that is important as well as with some preconstruction works to extend that railway all the way from Melbourne to Brisbane. That is going to be so vital for the farmers I represent.

When we talk of achievements—and I am proud to be the 17th small business minister of this nation—this government is supporting small business with the $5.5 billion growing jobs and small business package, the biggest ever. It was in the 2015-16 budget. It is fixing competition laws to help small businesses compete with large businesses and extending consumer unfair contract term protections to small business. It is establishing the first Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman—and isn't Kate Carnell doing a wonderful job? It is growing export opportunities through preferential trade agreements with China, South Korea and Japan. So many of my small businesses in the Riverina electorate and in the Murrumbidgee irrigation area now represented by Sussan Ley, the member for Farrer, following a boundary redistribution, as well as in the Coleambally irrigation area have tapped into those markets already. There are so many export opportunities for them. The government is also getting on with the job of reducing red tape and government regulations, which is worth $4.8 billion to the economic bottom line. That work was started by the member for Kooyong and is now being continued through a series of ministers. It is a great thing.

Key small business measures include cutting company tax rates to 27½ per cent, further reducing to 25 per cent over the next decade. In our recently introduced 10-year enterprise tax plan we introduced an immediate deductibility on every asset costing less than $20,000 purchased by small businesses from the 2015 budget until the end of June 2017. What a great thing that is. What a great initiative that has been for small businesses right throughout this nation. We are looking at section 46 to help small business to compete on a level playing field with big business. There are 2.1 million small businesses in Australia, they employ 4.7 million Australians and they generate $340 billion for our economic good each and every year. That is tremendous.

There is so much more we are doing in the small business space. There is $1.372 million for training providers to help small and medium businesses access those groundbreaking trade agreements that we have been able to forge. We have made it easier for small businesses to access export loans up to $250,000 with EficDirect online. There is capital gains tax rollover relief when small businesses change their legal structures but keep the same owners. There is so much more.

We abolished the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, saving the jobs of 62,000 owner-drivers in the transport industry. Whilst I am speaking of that, I would just like to refer to a couple of the comments that were made by those truckies—those great people who keep this nation moving—when that dreadful RSRT was in place. Alan Shearer from Shearer's Road Freight, whose depot is on Blaxland Road in East Wagga Wagga, said that from his personal perspective he saw it as discrimination against small businesses that totally involve family ownership and/or family members being employed by that entity. He said it was a restriction of free trade and that there was a total lack of understanding of how the transport industry is structured and runs. The inference is that contractor-drivers are the major source of road safety problems—we know that is not true.

Clayton and Naomi Thomas are owner-directors of Thomas' International Transport Services on Neeld Street in Wyalong. Clayton said that the order which came into effect on 4 April 2016 set up an unworkable system of minimum payments that did not allow owner-drivers to compete on a fair market basis with fleet operators. Of course, he is right. He said that it was his considered position that the alleged linking of remuneration under this order to the objects of the Road Safety Remuneration Act 2012 was strongly disputed and not supported by readily available statistical data on the real causes of the majority of heavy vehicle accidents. It is the same sort of thing that Mr Shearer said, and of course he is right.

Wayne Lewis from Coolamon said:

Speaking of the TWU, I cannot really believe that an organisation such as theirs could hate a group of people, owner-drivers and their families, so much that they could instigate something as woeful as this. If they are trying to get owner-drivers on-side, I suggest they go back to the drawing board because this type of bullying will never make me want to be part of their little gang. How do I explain to a hirer that, instead of a tonnage rate or a cubic rate which they now pay, they are going to have to pay a kilometre rate and an hourly rate as well? What happens on a journey if the truck is held up through no fault of the driver, for example, for a flood, roadworks, accident or even law enforcement officers? Does this mean that I have to go back to the hirer and say to them that they owe me more money because the trip took longer because of these unforeseen circumstances?

Of course, he is right.

I have to say that one of the good initiatives that the government has and will continue to have is decentralisation. It is so important. Just last Friday I went to the Australian Taxation Office. They were having a digital platform regional workshop in Albury. They were celebrating—and I do mean the word 'celebrating'—40 years of the ATO being in Albury. The ATO used to have this facade of a sort of Big Brother. You could see the pinstriped, grey-headed fellow—like me really—with a big stick whacking people if they did not pay their tax on time. That facade has gone. These are young, tech-savvy people who want to actually help in a friendly way small business to meet their tax obligations. The new portal that the ATO has put up is tremendous. They have Alex the tax assistant. I have Alex the tax assistant at home—my tax advisor is my son, who is a tax accountant. Alex the tax assistant is an online portal for help which is there for small businesses to be able to meet their tax obligations.

As I say, it was 40 years they were celebrating. They had this regional workshop and 80 small business owner-operators from Albury-Wodonga came. They were baristas and they were plumbers—they were good people wanting to meet their tax obligations. They came to this meeting at the ATO high-rise office in Smollett Street to learn how they could do that. The ATO is doing that in a friendly, helpful way. Well done, Judy O'Connell and her staff, for organising it.

With decentralisation the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority is heading to Armidale. That is a good thing. The Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation is heading to Wagga Wagga. It is going to be chaired by my predecessor, Kay Hull. That is a good thing. The Grains Research and Development Corporation is going to have a new hub-and-spoke model. It is going to have a presence in Toowoomba in Queensland, as well as branches and depots in Dubbo and in Western Australia. The Murray-Darling Basin Authority is also on the move. All of these organisations are in Canberra at the moment. I have to say that it is good that they are going to be decentralising. That is a push by the Nationals in government, and it is a good push.

We saw the success of the ATO when it moved to Albury—40 years of success. They have such a great presence there. They build direct and indirect wealth through helping small businesses and bringing people to fine regional centres such as Albury. I am sure the APVMA will do just the same in Armidale. Never mind what the member for Hunter thinks about opposing this all the way. He purports to be from country Labor. He should show a little bit more generosity towards country people and certainly towards country areas. I ask him to get on board with the APVMA moving to Armidale. It is a good decentralisation move. The RIRDC moving to Wagga Wagga is a sensible decision. The GRDC going to regional centres, such as Toowoomba and Dubbo, which is in the fine member for Parkes's electorate, is a good thing.

The Murray-Darling Basin belongs in regional Australia, out where the irrigation is—out where they can do really important field work and certainly be a part of the communities that they serve. They rely on irrigation, water being the lifeblood of all the things that we grow.

To help foster those wonderful preferential trade agreements, I urge that the parliament get on board with the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2016-2017. It is important, and certainly small business is also the lifeblood of this nation. Thank you.

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