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

that the Australian government spends every year with a 20 per cent target. It's something that those opposite failed to do during their nine years in government.

We've also passed legislation to make unfair contract terms illegal, so small businesses can negotiate fairer agreements with big businesses. Again, it was something those opposite talked about for years but did not deliver on in the entire time that they were in office. They were in office nine years and they didn't deliver on it.

As part of the budget, we also committed to provide $15 million for small business owners across Australia to access free mental health and financial counselling support. And, as I said today, there's the Small Business Debt Helpline support money that was in the budget. That is a program that those opposite, in their budget earlier in the year, had ending on 31 December, but we made sure that those businesses are getting the support they need in tough times. That is what we are doing.

We know how important these programs are for small businesses. I spoke to a small business owner in my electorate, Claire. She told me how important it was. She told me about how difficult it was for her when her pharmacy flooded. She told me how important that type of critical support can be when you are waiting for supply chains and having to deal with trying to get your business back up off the ground. She is a pharmacist. At that particular time she was doing mass immunisations to try and support the local community. She had to close her pharmacy. She made sure that those immunisations that were scheduled did take place.

We make sure that the programs that are required are there. That's why we are also delivering $62.6 million in energy efficient grants to eligible small and medium businesses to help with rising costs. We know that they need some support in terms of adapting and getting more energy efficient appliances and systems into their small businesses.

This week, we introduced bills into the House to implement the Skills and Training Boost and the Technology Investment Boost. These are incentives that will help small businesses to train and upskill their employees and improve their digital capacity. These are worth more than $1.5 billion. The measures are backdated to 29 March to make sure small business owners receive the full benefits.

I will also be meeting with state and territory business ministers next month—again, another thing that those opposite failed to do for almost a decade. You would've thought it would make sense to get the state ministers in the room with the federal ministers to talk about how we work together to remove some of that burden on small businesses, but, no, they couldn't do that.

As I said, we do know that small businesses have been doing it tough. We also have new funding for measures already put in place by our government, including $18.6 million to help small businesses adapt and build resilience through digital technology. They sit alongside our other wider agenda that will benefit small businesses. For instance, small businesses, as I said today, will benefit from our increase in skilled migration to assist with staff shortages. We will provide a one-off income credit to older Australians to give them the opportunity to work and keep more of their money, immediately boosting the number of jobseekers. Again, small businesses will be able to benefit from this. We will accelerate the delivery of 465,000 additional fee-free TAFE places with 180,000 to be delivered in 2023. This will help get more skilled workers into the job market more quickly.

Of course, our cheaper child care and our expanded paid parental leave will mean that it will be easier for families. It will also increase workforce participation, meaning that more people will be able to work in small businesses to help with the staff shortages that they are experiencing.

Yes, we are making changes to industrial relations. It is a system that the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia has described as 'inaccessible' and 'intimidating' for small businesses. We are making these changes because we believe in modernising the workplace bargaining system and in getting wages moving. We are doing it because we know that small businesses will benefit from the productivity gains of negotiating directly with their employees. Everybody wins in that situation.

We have put in safeguards. We have an exemption in there for more than two million small businesses—those with 15 or fewer employees—to make sure that we are not putting an additional burden on very small businesses. And, of course, we've had an inquiry into that legislation. The Senate committee has made eight recommendations, and one of those is for us to look at increasing that threshold from 15 to 20; we have said we will look at that and continue negotiating and talking. We have had a lot of discussion with small businesses, workers in small businesses and peak organisations about this bill.

Yesterday we had the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, who also happens to be the shadow minister for women, say the whole bill is terrible—the entire thing! We need to remind those opposite, as the Prime Minister did today, that it's designed to help close the gender pay gap. You would have thought those opposite learned something, with all these teals over here! You've got the shadow minister for women saying it's terrible. You would have thought she'd want to ensure the work of women no longer remains undervalued, underpaid and insecure, because that's what the bill fixes. It also has pay equity provisions for the Fair Work Act to strengthen access to flexible work arrangements, again benefiting those workers that have caring responsibilities—many of them women; they are predominantly women.

Importantly, the bill will implement recommendation 28 of the Respect@Work report, aimed at preventing sexual harassment in the workplace. For the shadow minister for women to go out and say the whole bill is terrible, when it contains implementing that recommendation, says a lot about what is happening on the other side of the House. Our bill will send a clear message to every worker in every workplace that sexual harassment will not be tolerated. I would've thought it's something those opposite would have supported, but apparently not. According to their deputy leader, the whole bill is terrible. There are changes I would've wanted to see when I was working in my first full-time job, in a small business. We want to make workplaces safer for women. I remember my first experience, and, can I say, it's about time modern workplaces caught up. That's all I want to say about it in this place, but I remember it. It's a pity the shadow minister over there thinks these provisions are just terrible.

We've heard a lot of noise from those opposite this week—there's been a wall of noise coming over every day. If only they'd used that energy when they were in government to deliver more for small businesses. If only they had actually done what they said they would do. But, no, it took our government to do things like legislate unfair-contract terms. It took our government to increase support for critical programs that provide mental health support and for the debt hotline for small businesses. It took our government to add to the Commonwealth Procurement Rules so that small businesses get a better share. Many of these things weren't delivered by those opposite because, of course, we know they were far too busy with a whole range of other things. But we know small businesses are at the heart of communities. We support them, and we are going to continue to provide support for small businesses. We want to make sure every small business in every community right across Australia continues to prosper. We are going to make sure that every decision we make has small businesses at the heart of it, just like we have the entire six months we've been in government so far. I look forward to delivering for small businesses right across the country.

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