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

Mindful of time, the minister has advised me that the member for Kingsford Smith's questions will be answered in writing to him by the minister. In answer to the member for Page's very learned questions about the Australian government's taxation policies, we are reducing company tax rate to 27½ per cent, the lowest it has been since the late 1960s. It forms part of a ten-year enterprise tax plan, which is going to make small businesses in your electorate of Page very happy and indeed small businesses, 2.1 million of them right across Australia, very happy. If Labor gets on board and wants to help us push through the legislation to enable even more businesses as part of the 10-year enterprise tax plan to be beneficiaries of that lowering of the company tax rate then I would very much encourage them and advise them to do so because it will help businesses, particularly small businesses, in their electorates as well.

The member for Perth, the shadow minister, has also asked me questions about button batteries. I can assure him in answer to his question, when did I become first aware, that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission provided me with a brief on button batteries when I first became the Minister for Small Business. Have I received any representations from companies? The answer is no. In answer to his final question as to the monitoring of it, yes, I am being kept up to date about the button battery situation by the ACCC, by the Commissioner Rod Sims and by the Deputy Commissioner Michael Schaper. In fact, I am having a meeting with the commissioner tomorrow. It is an important issue, and I look forward, as we discussed yesterday, to you and I having a discussion about button batteries and other important aspects of consumer law.

The ACCC is working with industry, with government and with consumer stakeholders to improve the—

See this speech in context