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

Or they could just go and have another yelling session with the opposition leader. As I was saying, the member for Maribyrnong, this opposition leader, reckons he is the champion of ordinary Australians—unless, of course, they run a small business. The Leader of the Opposition said a lot today about how he, apparently, cares. But he left out one critical sector which drives one of the greatest contributions to the Australian economy. Just as he does every day, he forgot those ordinary, everyday Australians in small business—those ordinary Australians who run 2.1 million small businesses and employ almost five million ordinary, everyday Australians.

Every day in this country, ordinary Australians wake up and they go to work in small businesses, building the economy and creating jobs. Every day, those ordinary Australians take risks. We heard the Prime Minister in question time today talk about those risk-takers. He talked about their enterprise. He talked about the need for investment. He talked about small businesses. But we never hear too much from the opposition leader about small businesses. Every day this government is backing those small businesses. Those opposite have no plan for ordinary Australians, because there is one key thing about our economy they simply do not understand—

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