Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bennelong for his very important question. As I've said in this place before, small businesses really are the engine room of our economy. Indeed, they do employ millions of Australians and do contribute more than $400 billion to our economy.

We're already delivering for small businesses, but we know that the significant economic and employment challenges that they continue to face. We know that they've had a tough few years, with fire, floods and the pandemic, but they've been incredibly resilient and it was important that they had a role to play in terms of the Jobs and Skills Summit. In the lead-up to the Jobs and Skills Summit, I hosted several round tables, and I want to put on the record my thanks to the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia, the small business ombudsman, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the HIA for hosting those round tables for me in the lead-up to the Jobs and Skills Summit. At those round tables, we heard of course about the skills shortages. We heard about supply chain issues and we heard about the issues and the inherited trillion dollars of debt that we've got—and, of course, increasing energy costs and inflation, and how they're impacting on small businesses.

Of course some of the outcomes of the Jobs and Skills Summit for small businesses are really important to address some of those, particularly when it comes to the migration program and increasing skilled labour. We know that these small businesses have been screaming out for more skilled labour. We also know that the visa backlog has been impacting small businesses, so that is a really important and welcome decision. We know, of course, that the establishment of Jobs and Skills Australia has been really welcomed by small businesses, because they understand that the only way to deal with the skills shortages long term is to have better training and skills for Australians to be able to meet those shortages. Our fee-free TAFE announcement was critical for the small businesses: 180,000 places in the first year, to be able to share with states and territories in implementing those. And of course we've heard about the aged pensioners and the temporary upfront $4,000 income bank credit to allow them to work more.

Of course we welcome the agreement between COSBOA and the employee's representatives, the unions. It's great to see workers and small businesses come together on an agreement that the current enterprise-bargaining system is not working for the small businesses, nor is it working for the employees. Indeed, this agreement is really important for all of those people working in small businesses and all of the small business owners. These measures build on what we're already delivering as part of our election commitments. We're building on our Commonwealth procurement changes and our unfair contract terms legislation, which is being introduced to parliament—

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