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

I hear the clamour from those opposite. They should also know how important small businesses are, as the engine room of our economy. When visiting Esme's cafe in Forbes in my electorate, Linda Rees, the owner, pulled me aside. She said she wanted to show me the instant asset write-off. She wanted to show me exactly how she had invested in her business: the new industrial dishwasher and the new stainless steel servery. She was considering selling the business and, indeed, she got so many more customers through the door she maintained the ownership of that business for quite a bit longer. Then, indeed, she did sell it for a higher price than she would have got had she not invested in the instant asset write-off. Now, on the brink of making the decision to sell the business and move on, the instant depreciation of new equipment helped Linda and helped Esme's cafe, to make the business more viable and to make it more saleable. Indeed, she got a higher price. Ask any Australian small business owner what they would do with a tax cut and you will learn about their ambition.

In Gumdale in Queensland, in the member for Bonner's electorate, Joy de Beer, who runs Take Away Bins—a skip and industrial bin hire business—told me how her business would have closed but for the tax cut that we have delivered. She said: 'The tax would have killed us. The federal government saved my business.' That is what she said in Queensland. She said, 'We would've gone under without the tax cut.' It is a never-ending story of putting the investment in their pocket. That is what the coalition is doing.

Tanya Simmons from Bennetts Steel in Wauchope, in the member for Lyne's electorate, explained how the extra cash in her pocket from paying less tax will help her hire more local trainees and apprentices. They design and manufacture a flat pack fireplace—the perfect addition to your camping and caravanning get away. It is local innovation at its best. This government is made of members who understand small business. We have run our own small businesses. We have not run them into the ground, like those opposite would. We have employed our own people. We understand that in business you have to take on risk to get ahead of the game and to get more customers through the door.

Another central tenet of this plan is changing the definition of 'small business' to a business with an annual turnover of $10 million, giving thousands and thousands more small businesses across this wide brown land the tax cut I mentioned earlier. It is a genuine plan for growth, to create more jobs and to create more opportunities for more Australians.

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