James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the second reading of this bill, the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Self-Employment Programs and Other Measures) Bill, specifically on the NEIS program. Just to put some context at the beginning of my contribution: we live in a remarkable time, with such low unemployment in this country. We are hearing, month after month, ABS statistics talking about records being broken going back into the 1970s. It's a truly remarkable time. We recognise that there are some external factors that have contributed to the extremely low unemployment rate. Of course, COVID-19 clearly had a significant impact on the supply side of the workforce with the closing of the international border, which meant we were unable to maintain our migration program for a two-year period.

There was an initial good dividend from that in the sense that clearly we've got unemployment to a remarkably low figure—in fact, lower than, when I studied economics, some of the members of academia said unemployment could get to. Five per cent used to be the notional full-employment proposition, taking into account transitions et cetera in the labour market. To have unemployment in the threes is truly remarkable, and that's been a great outcome for all those people that might not have had a job were it not for the circumstances we're in right now, but it's equally putting an enormous amount of pressure on businesses who desperately need more workers and can't get them at the moment. We do feel for those businesses with those challenge. The precarious situation we're in right now with such remarkably low unemployment will potentially lead some businesses to make the kinds of decisions we do not want them to make—that is, perhaps scaling down production, perhaps not being able to maintain output at the levels they would otherwise if they were able to get the employees they need.

This is, of course, impacting different sectors and different geographical regions of the country. These challenges are not always the same everywhere around the country. Far from it; they tend to have unique challenges depending on the skills that are required and the geographical region of where our businesses are located. Obviously we're in a beautiful and enormous continent, and it's not so easy in this country for people to relocate vast distances to satisfy a high demand for jobs. Equally, we don't have a situation where there's particularly high unemployment anywhere in this country at the moment. So there's not a circumstance where people are looking to leave any part of the country because they can't find work. That's a good thing, but it brings about those challenges.

The New Enterprise Incentive Scheme has been around since 1985, with the Hawke government. Previous speakers have talked about how there has been around 200,000 participants in that scheme over that 37-year period. Yes, I suppose when you divide that by 37 years, it would be nice for that annual number to be higher. Nonetheless, not many of these schemes survive multiple changes of government and are still here 37 years later, and that probably reflects the fact that all sides of politics have seen value in the NEIS scheme—though it's perhaps to be known by a different name once we've finished debating this legislation.

The member for Mayo mentioned that it's not a very well-known or understood scheme. I've known about it for a long, long time. My mother happened to work in the federal department in this very program about 20 or 25 years ago, so maybe I know it particularly well because of that reason. Nonetheless, it's something that all sides of politics are supporting to continue into the future. We in the Liberal Party particularly want to support it and do anything we can to help people start a business and create a job. Having just made comments about the challenges that businesses have at the moment in employing people, that doesn't detract at all from the value of someone creating a new job in our economy and a new business in our economy. Let's be honest: unemployment is most probably not going to have a three in front of it into the future; we can't count on that, and we want to see every lever being pulled that allows us to increase the size of our labour market.

To do that, what we say on this side of the chamber is that we want to see more businesses created. We want to see the economic pie and the employment pie get larger. That's nothing against people like, frankly, all of us in this chamber, who are employees—and very proudly—but we really need to do everything we can to back someone who wants to be self-employed, to back someone who sees some value in the independence that you get from starting your own business. Of course, there are many, many people in this chamber that have started a business and that have certainly had all of the exhilaration and stress that comes with starting a business. Yes, there is the independence of being in command of your own destiny, but, of course, there is the stress of not having the salary, the pay packet that you can absolutely count on. There is the stress of knowing that you've got to be out and hoping that the customers are going to be there into the future, hopefully, growing your business but certainly maintaining it at a level that ensures that you're earning the income that you need. Those are the economic heroes of this country: people who take that risk to start their own business, hopefully for that business to succeed and grow and, in fact, for them not just to be self-employed but themselves in that business to employ lot more people in that business as they grow it into the future.

We all know the statistics. There are successful businesses, but 30 per cent of businesses—it's certainly been the case in the past—fail in the first 12 months, 70 per cent in the first three years. So it's a huge risk that people take when they go to start a business. Of course, at the moment, in a environment of such low unemployment, it is probably more and more tempting than ever for people to decide to take a job rather than create a new business. And we know that, for the years and decades into the future, it's people making the decision today to start a new business and maybe—certainly hopefully—for them to not be amongst the statistics of those businesses that don't succeed in the first year or in the first three years but in fact create a business that gets through those first few years and grows in the years after, perhaps in 5 or 10 years becoming the sort of business that went from something that someone established as a sole proprietor to a business that is employing a handful, if not a dozen, if not tens or hundreds of Australians. Those businesses need to be created now, even in a time when unemployment is low, because they'll be paying a real dividend when, perhaps, unemployment won't be so low. Certainly, hopefully, we want to keep unemployment low continuously, but we also want our economy increasing. We want more jobs being created in our economy, and to do that we need people to start businesses.

That's what NEIS has done. It's been there since 1985 to support people who are unemployed and see an idea or an opportunity for them to start a business and need help and support to get off the ground. By enrolling in NEIS and getting the financial support through there along with the other elements of the program, that, hopefully, puts them in the best place we can put them in to back them for their business to be successful.

It's not just financial assistance, of course, through NEIS and its future incarnation. We also know that people do need a lot of support around the skills to start a business. You might have a skill for the business that you want to establish and run, but just having that skill isn't enough to run a successful business. You of course also need the skills of running a business: some basic bookkeeping and accounting skills, the ability to develop a business plan and understanding what the government rules and regulations are around the particular going concern that you are planning to launch as your own enterprise.

I know that over the years NEIS has done a lot and been a good way of putting people in the program in touch with other supports that government has to make sure people are equipped with those skills. Despite the difficulty in succeeding when you start a business—or probably because of that difficulty—we want to support people, giving them the best chance possible for their idea and for that business that they want to pursue as a self-employed person. That means having the financial support payments in place and, of course, having other support structures from government in place to support them is hopefully going to give them the best chance of them being successful not only to employ themselves but, of course, to grow a business that might, in fact, employ a lot more Australians.

We in the coalition are very proud of the record specific to business creation but also just generally the number of jobs that were created that the shadow minister talked about, with 1.8 million jobs created between the time we came to government in 2013 and the recent May election. Governments obviously do a lot of very important things, but creating 1.8 million jobs is a tremendous legacy of our nine years in government. If we hadn't created those 1.8 million jobs, we would be facing a very different set of challenges right now. That's 1.8 million more people in work. That's 1.8 million more people paying income tax, contributing to the economic growth of this nation and helping us to weather some very significant economic challenges that are coming our way at the moment. Those 1.8 million people, coupled with the entirety of a very strong labour market that, again, we left, meant at the election in May we had put this country in one of the strongest positions of any country in the world.

We have global challenges coming our way. They are many, varied and significant, unfortunately. We're seeing a manifestation of those already, with interest rates going up. We hope it won't be the case but do fear just what impact these interest rate rises are going to have on all Australians that borrow money, that own their home and owe a lot of money to the bank. When we think about this legislation and this program, with people starting a business and how challenging it is, when you look at your business plan you'll suddenly realise, if you are borrowing money to start that business, what your interest rate was going to be six months ago, what you were counting on it being, and now what it is likely you will need to count on it being into the future. Of course, we don't know how much further interest rates will go up beyond the increases that have already been announced over the last few months by the Reserve Bank, but these are some of the challenges that will befall the Australian economy in the not-too-distant future.

We're all here to work as hard as we can to look after our economy, in particular. It's things like creating 1.8 million jobs in a nine-year period of time that put us, the coalition, in a position to be able to say, 'We certainly used those nine years to continue to do what coalition governments do best, and that is grow our economy and keep improving the wealth of this nation and the economic security of the people that live in this nation.' That's the position we find ourselves in, going into difficult times.

This bill to facilitate transitions into the future for the New Enterprise Incentive Scheme is one that I'm very pleased to support, as the coalition are pleased to support it. It is part of a framework that we left behind to this new government of strong, robust systems to help people start businesses and, by starting those businesses, grow our economy to the benefit of all Australians. I commend the bill to the House.

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