Trevor Evans (Brisbane, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) recognises that the last two budgets demonstrate the Government's achievements in supporting small businesses;

(2) notes that the Government has delivered:

(a) a Ten Year Enterprise Tax Plan to reduce the tax rate to 27.5 per cent, commencing on 1 July 2016, with the tax rate to progressively reduce to 25 per cent by 1 July 2026, noting that the lower rate will apply to businesses with annual turnover of less than $10 million from 1 July 2016;

(b) an immediate tax deduction for small businesses when purchasing assets up to $20,000;

(c) a more than $4.8 billion reduction in red tape and compliance costs for business;

(d) simplified business activity statement reporting requirements to reduce compliance costs for small business;

(e) improved access to digital services for small businesses through the rollout and pilot of the Single Touch Payroll system; and

(f) an extension of the unfair contract term provisions to create a level playing field for small businesses when entering standard form contracts;

(3) acknowledges the Government's efforts to boost innovation, open markets and grow businesses through:

(a) delivering the $1.1 billion National Innovation and Science Agenda, which includes key measures to promote a dynamic culture of entrepreneurship, changes to insolvency reform and access to finance;

(b) signing new trade agreements with Korea, Japan, China and Singapore and committing resources to help small and medium businesses access new export opportunities;

(c) creating an advocate for small business with the appointment of the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman in March 2016;

(d) strengthening our competition laws to protect small businesses against anticompetitive

behaviour and the misuse of market power;

(e) helping small businesses gain greater access to finance through innovative solutions and diverse funding options with the release of the Fintech statement; and

(f) making it easier for small businesses to access Commonwealth procurement opportunities; and

(4) encourages the Government to continue to pursue cutting red tape and compliance costs while implementing a rigorous policy agenda which supports Australian small businesses.

Small business was at the centre of the government's last budget and the one before that because small business is the engine room, the backbone, the hardworking base of our economy. Small business drives much of the innovation, the job creation, the productivity and the entrepreneurship that we need to generate the opportunities our country so critically needs right now.

In my electorate of Brisbane, there are about 30,000 small businesses employing local people and providing so many of the local opportunities. Nationally, small businesses are collectively the biggest source of jobs and opportunities right across Australia, and all of the actions being taken by this government—some of which I listed in this motion—are targeted at the important prospect of every small business across Australia potentially employing one extra Australian, which would solve unemployment and underemployment for our youth, for our mature-age job seekers, for the Indigenous and for the disabled who want and deserve the dignity of work.

In addition to recognising how the last two budgets demonstrate this government's support for small business, I want to mention our ongoing focus on cutting waste and the task of budget repair following those years of Labor mismanagement. Those priorities are critical to the question of business and household confidence because confidence is so directly relevant to the prospects of so many small businesses, retailers and service providers alike who rely on discretionary spending by their customers. Equally important, for similar reasons actually, is the government's innovation agenda. The $1.1 billion of initiatives is incredibly significant and the regulatory changes to make it easier to fund start-ups and commercialise ideas are excellent, but even those benefits are outweighed, I feel, by the fact that the government's focus has lifted the topic of innovation into the national conversation, making many Australians right across the country think again about the little business idea they have had hanging around in the back of their minds and really driving entrepreneurship.

I spoke at some length last week about another key plank of our support for small businesses—our enterprise tax plan to reduce company tax rates. I look forward to speaking, hopefully later this week, about closing down the growing loophole of the GST low-value threshold, which has been acting like a reverse tariff wall, disadvantaging local retail businesses to the benefit of their offshore competitors. These measures are about improving our international competitiveness, a problem which is not going to go away; it is only going to get worse over time if we do not act. The reduction in our marginal company tax rate, despite the rhetoric sometimes of others in this House, is targeted for many of its first years predominantly and solely at small business. If we continue along the path towards being less internationally competitive when most other equivalent economies around the world are heading in the other direction, small businesses and innovation and jobs will inevitably go overseas.

In March last year, the coalition created an independent advocate for small business with the appointment of Kate Carnell as the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman. This is already paying dividends for the small business community. We have seen her recently release her recommendations on the payment times and practices inquiry. Coming from a small business background myself, I know how cash is king, and these recommendations should help small businesses improve their cash flow. The small business ombudsman has also made some significant contributions in the area of small business lending by the banks. I want to mention in passing the government's hearings into the practices of the big four banks here in Australia as one of the MPs who gets to sit on the House economics committee which holds the big four bank CEOs to account. I have made it a particular focus of mine to ask about competition in the banking sector and banks' lending practices to small businesses. I am of and I am from small business. The list of government achievements and priorities in this motion is as extensive as it is because of the Liberal-National Party being the ones with the experience, the real-world experience in small business. We better understand the opportunities and the challenges faced by small businesses today. We are committed to the success of small businesses right across Australia. We are doing so much to allow them to grow, to innovate, to trade, to compete and, as I said, to create the jobs and the opportunities that this country so desperately and critically needs. I commend this motion to the House.

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