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

I move:

That the amendments be agreed to.

In recent weeks, during the parliamentary sitting recess, I have travelled to many locations listening to and hearing directly from hundreds of small business owners. Every day I have been encouraged by the positive response to the tax cut we have already delivered for small business and the anticipation for the tax cuts to go further and to be extended to more businesses. The government's enterprise tax plan will deliver tax relief for 3.2 million small and medium businesses, which employ more than 6½ million Australian workers. They are at the forefront of this amendment before the House today. We all want more jobs. We all want better opportunities. We all want higher wages.

The government has accepted the Senate's amendments to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan) Bill 2016. Small and medium businesses with turnovers of less than $50 million a year are set to benefit from their tax rate falling to 25 per cent. It will deliver new job opportunities and increase wages. This amendment will enable businesses with a turnover of less than $10 million to receive a reduction in their tax rate to 27½ per cent this financial year—the lowest it has been for many, many decades.

Under our reforms, small businesses with turnovers of up to $10 million will also receive access to tax concessions, including immediate deductibility for assets costing less than $20,000 acquired before 30 June 2017—another tax simplification provision. Our plan is to cut taxes, put small businesses in the driver's seat and Australians in jobs. Above all, it is a plan to create new opportunities and secure Australia's future. It is small business, not government, which creates jobs and opportunities. This government is serious about energising enterprise. As a country MP, I think I am pretty fortunate. As local members we travel about towns, villages and communities in our large, diverse electorates, and locals will always stop us and let us know what is on their minds. They are very frank. They are very free with their advice. I am reminded, as ever, what inspired me to run for parliament in the first place: to work as hard as I can on behalf of my constituents and on behalf of my small businesses each and every day. It is the conversations and interactions with local people that inspire me to come back to this place and to talk up small business.

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