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

Small business is the heart and soul of the country and of my electorate of Casey. Small businesses are crucial to the Australian economy due to their contributions to employment, innovation, regional development, diversity, entrepreneurship, customer choice, tax revenue, export opportunities, community engagement and overall economic resilience. Supporting and nurturing the small business sector is essential for a healthy and robust Australian economy. This bill, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Support for Small Business and Charities and Other Measures) Bill 2023, implements a range of changes to small business tax incentives, charity tax arrangements, superannuation complaints, superannuation transfer price rules and tax treatment for insurance.

I want to concentrate on the elements around small business. When I put my hand up to be a member of parliament, it was for many reasons, including to represent my community that I grew up in and dearly love. But it was also to bring small business knowledge and experience to this place to make sure laws were made to support small business, to protect small business, to nurture small business and to ensure the voice of small business is heard in this place. Labor's anti-business agenda on tax, on industrial relations and on energy is leaving small and family businesses behind.

Unfortunately, insolvency and bankruptcy are on the rise. Business is facing a challenging time of rising costs, rising inputs, supply chain pressures and decreasing revenue. Since Anthony Albanese has become Prime Minister, small business has been all but abandoned in Labor's draft national platform, and it is an afterthought in each budget.

The small-business community has been feeling invisible for the last 18 months. The unfortunate reality is that the Minister for Small Business has never run a small business and she rarely engages with them. It's symbolic that today, when the minister spoke, she had 15 minutes to talk about small business in this place and she spoke for five minutes. It's not always about quantity, but the quality was lacking as well. To spend five minutes talking about small business in our country sums up what the Minister for Small Business really thinks about the industry. How would she have any idea how to support small business through this inflation and cost-of-living crisis?

We've seen Labor consistently, time and time again, turn their back on small business. But small business employs almost half of Australia's private sector workforce, and it represents over 97 per cent of all Australian businesses. Despite running to 114 pages, Labor's platform mentions small business five times—only five times in 114 pages.

Given that a small business is most vulnerable to increasing costs and declining revenue, due to limited cash reserves, governments play an important role in supporting them: firstly, by creating strong economic conditions and, secondly, by creating legislation and regulation to make their life easier—and, dare I say it, even looking to remove red tape and regulation where possible. The reality is that a small business that has to close employs no-one.

There are many things in this bill that are lacking, but a great example of this is the energy incentive that the government touts and talks about. Again, this is classic Labor policy, where the political spin does not match the reality on the ground. They'll throw out the headline that it's a $100,000 reduction for a business, but it misses two points: a business has to actually have the money to invest in that energy saving, which in the current climate, they don't; and, to actually claim the full $100,000, which those opposite talk about, that business needs to earn a profit of $500,000 in the year. That small business has to earn $500,000 after investing all that money. It's a good headline—it's good spin—and they'll stand up and talk about how they're supporting small business, but it's actually not making a difference on the ground for business, and it shows again how this government just don't get it.

When I look through this bill, it has the words 'support for small business' in its title, but it actually decimates the instant asset write-off, depriving 26,500 medium-sized businesses of access to accelerated depreciation. This is and has been an important measure to support business investment. It was an important support that kept business and the economy going through COVID. It's a cancellation that will drive down investment, productivity and jobs. This is bad economic policy at a time when Australian families and small businesses are struggling under Labor's cost-of-living crisis. It's another example of this Prime Minister and this government making the wrong decisions and the Australian people having to pay.

While the coalition believes that this isn't a great bill, we will support it. But the reality is it doesn't go nearly far enough. The coalition will move amendments to recognise Labor's failure to support small and family businesses and extend the instant asset write-off back to the levels seen in the 2019-20 budget.

This means that the 26,500 businesses with aggregate turnovers of up of $50 million will be eligible to use the instant asset write-off. The asset threshold will increase from $20,000 to $30,000, allowing businesses to claim the depreciation on a wider range of assets. The reality is, and the member for Petrie wonderfully gave some great examples, $20,000 doesn't do a lot for a small business. This is a high-inflation environment where, unfortunately for small businesses, if they're fortunate to have $20,000 in the bank today, it's not worth the same as the $20,000 they had in the bank 18 months ago because of inflation caused by this government. They just don't get it. It aligns the eligibility with a small business company tax rate, and Labor's small business energy initiative measures, which are contained in this bill. It's a modest additional cost in the forward estimates, compared to Labor's measure.

After 18 months, the Australian people have worked out the Albanese Labor government. They know the government doesn't have a plan to improve the economy or to support small business. But we, the coalition, on this side of the chamber are focused on a back-to-basics economic agenda that will put fighting inflation and driving productivity growth at its centre. Inflation, overregulation and low productivity are aspiration killers. The coalition are committed to backing the aspirations of families, backing the aspirations of small businesses and backing the aspirations of Australians to succeed. The coalition will put the economic interests of Australians first, by focusing on strong economic management that brings down inflation, reduces debt and deficits and increases prosperity for all Australians. This requires a focus on supporting small business and entrepreneurship, delivering lower, simpler taxes and cutting red tape to drive innovation. It requires supporting technology uptakes in business and in the digital economy and in areas such as artificial intelligence and quantum.

I was disappointed to learn in an InnovationAus article this week that a US firm has been approached and is considered the frontrunner in the tender process to supply up to $200 million worth of quantum technologies to the government. This would be the government's largest single investment in quantum. Complicated by national security and defence interests, quantum is one of the four priority technologies that Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom have committed to process by 2025, under AUKUS pillar 2. Many in the local tech sector were surprised and disappointed. InnovationAus reported on the weekend:

… an expression of interest … process was started in August, with local and international firms hand-picked by the government invited to pitch their offerings and to put forward proposals for the financing of the plan.

Companies in the process have been bound to strict non-disclosure agreements that keeps the process out of the public view. As the shadow minister for the digital economy said:

Australia has established itself as a world leader in quantum computing and it's disappointing to hear that such a massive amount of taxpayer money could be invested without a tender and competitive process.

The EOI was issued in August, after the release of the National Quantum Strategy, which focused on building sovereign capacity and local expertise. InnovationAus went on to say the US company:

PsiQuantum is considered a front-runner among the firms, with several sources claiming … that the EOI had been written in a way that benefits the company and its fusion-based approach to quantum computing.

My understanding from the article is that PsiQuantum has deep connections in the defence department, with the former chief of staff of defence minister Richard Marles lobbying on behalf of the company, according to the government's register of lobbyists. What a coincidence. Unfortunately, this is what the industry has come to expect from this government. They're criticising the government for its lack of transparency in its approach to the local market and industry and the way it is seemingly discounting our local, world-renounced quantum sector bursting with potential and opportunities. What message does this send to other countries and international investors? Why is the government yet again ignoring our own country's innovation and skills? What opportunities are we wasting by automatically looking overseas for solutions before exploring the potential here at home? This is another example of why governments should not look to pick winners in industry policy but create an environment where the best products and businesses will succeed.

Australian small business is suffering because this PM does not understand small business, and, when he's making decisions that impact small businesses, he's always making the wrong decisions. When you look at the government's economic team, not one of them have worked in or with a small business. It's hard to find many across the aisle that have spent any time working in and with small business. I will acknowledge the member for Parramatta had one. He's in the chamber. So there's one. He's a lone wolf over there. I look forward to his contribution next.

We talk a lot about family businesses. I want to talk quickly about a great business I was able to visit in my electorate, Hop Hen Brewing. Mike and Jodie are the owners. They're teachers and they decided to follow their passion and start their own brewery. They started that from nothing but a dream, but they now employ over 14 locals in hospitality and manufacturing jobs. There's an ecosystem that they've created in our community and in Lilydale. They sponsor community organisations like the Mount Evelyn Football Club and the Mount Evelyn Cricket Club. That's what small businesses do. They create local jobs, they create local opportunities for young people and they support local community organisations, and that's why we need to continue to support them. That's why the coalition's amendment will restore the instant asset write-off to the levels introduced in the 2019 budget. It's why we will continue to focus on policies that will drive productivity at a time when it has experienced a historic collapse under Labor and that will grow the economy and support Australians.

Australians need a government that supports aspiration, not attacks it. Australians need a government that backs business to create jobs and doesn't fight it. Only a Peter Dutton Liberal government will deliver the strong economic management that will support Australian jobs, bring down inflation and fund the essential services Australians deserve.

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