Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

There are 47,000 people employed in small business in Casey. I worked in small business, at Yarra Valley Snack Foods, and I joined the company when we were at seven employees. Seven years later I left that company when we were at 130 employees. So as a leader in that business I lived through the change of a business. I can guarantee you that at 130 employees we were still very much a small business, because we had a lot of people on the books, but we had a lot of expenses. We didn't have a large HR department. We didn't have the ability to understand 249 pages of legislation. When we were hiring people we made decisions on whether it was worth increasing the size of our business or whether we invested in infrastructure.

We need to allow businesses and small businesses to continue to grow and to employ more people. Getting the number right on this is so crucial, because it has unintended consequences. As the member for Fisher said, 'Measure twice and cut once.' I worked on a job site at university. I made the mistake of measuring once and it was a mistake I never made again!

Sometimes, potentially, you're in this House for a long time and you can forget that the decisions that we make in this House are not ideological decisions. They're ideological discussions, yes, but they have consequences in the real world for real people—for small-business owners, for mothers and fathers who are looking to put food on the table—so it's so important that we take the time to get this legislation right. We're already at 150 amendments.

I was very fortunate to follow in the footsteps of the former member for Casey and former Speaker, the Hon. Tony Smith, who was respected throughout the House. He's a friend and a mentor, but he's also a custodian of meaningful and respectful debate in this place with his words but, most importantly, his actions. I'll finish with a quote from the Hon. Tony Smith from yesterday that relates directly to this amendment, to this debate and to what's happening in rushing this legislation through. He said:

… it is critical to remember that democracy is fundamentally underpinned by disagreement. At its core, democracy is a contest of ideas and ideals—a contest to find—

like the number of small businesses, including mine—

and form the best possible ideas and deliver on them. Integral to this contest is a process of respectful disagreement and debate.

We need to take the time to debate this legislation, send it to a committee and get the numbers right because there are 47,000 people in Casey who will be impacted if we get this wrong. There are also lots of constituents in McEwen who will be impacted if we get this wrong. That's why this debate is important. We need to take our time to get it right and to allow a committee to understand it. Having 150 amendments already shows that there are changes that need to be made during this debate. Every time we make another amendment, it has unintended consequences. When you work in business, you take your time to get important decisions right. This is a crucial decision that we are making in this House. I urge us to take the time to get it right.

See this speech in context