James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Government Waste Reduction) Share this | Hansard source

Like my colleague the member for Groom, I rise to urge the House to accept the wisdom of the Senate and agree with the amended bill that they've sent back to us. In so doing, I point out, as all the other speakers have so far, how vital it is to send a message to the small-business sector that we back them and that we want to help them, particularly in these very tough times. I didn't think I'd say at any point in my career that I am in this chamber supporting legislation for the small-business sector that even the Greens will be voting for. But that is the situation that we're in now, where only the government are not supporting this very sensible proposition that we should increase the threshold for the instant asset write-off from $20,000 to $30,000.

We've had contributions from the crossbench to that regard. We've had the Senate unite against the government to support increasing the threshold. And momentarily the government will have the opportunity to consider changing their mind, to consider being flexible and to consider listening to all the other political forces in this chamber and the other chamber. When we're in the community, when we're listening to our small-business sector, we hear that they really need this. Frankly they need a lot more than this, but this is one thing that we can do for them right now. We can send a message to the small-business sector that we want to back them to make decisions in their business, to invest in their business and to make purchase decisions that gain a greater tax advantage for them, because that is going to incentivise them to make those decisions and stimulate our economy at a very important time in which we need exactly that kind of activity.

I really commend the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, for his budget reply speech and particularly the commitment that he announced that a coalition government will increase the threshold to $30,000 and will make that an enduring and permanent change to the tax system. It's one of the many great examples of a tradition in the Liberal Party and the coalition of supporting the small-business sector and saying to them: 'We back you. We want the private sector to grow our economy. We want government to be as efficient as possible. We want taxes on small businesses, in particular, to be as low as possible. And we want to back people who go out there, take a risk, put their capital on the line, invest in our economy and actually create jobs and grow it.' As we grow the economy, we can afford to fund the society that we're very proud of as Australians. But that comes from the private sector being encouraged and supported by government decisions and government policy selections.

So the chamber has an opportunity to think deeply about that and think seriously about what sort of message we can send to the small-business sector tonight. I ask the government, I plead with the government, to consider the opportunity that they've got before them. I know that this isn't their idea and the default position in politics is to say, 'Well, that might be a good idea, but someone else has come up with it, so we'll just pretend that it's not and we'll use our numbers in the House of Representatives to stop it from progressing.' But this was such a good idea during the Morrison government. My friend the member for Riverina was in the cabinet that made the decisions around the COVID stimulus and saying to the small-business sector, 'Hey, we want to give you the ability to instantly write off assets up to these values from your tax this year.' How many businesses took up that opportunity and said, 'You know what, government, if you're going to back me and invest in my business, I'm going to invest in my business'? That's them not only investing in their business but investing in our whole economy and investing in our nation. It's a very, very sensible opportunity for the government to reconsider their position here and say: 'Fair enough. Increasing it to $30,000 will unlock more investment in our economy, right at the point at which we need it.'

I've got nearly 7,000 small businesses in my electorate. Everyone would be similar in the number of small businesses they have that would benefit from making this change. We've united the crossbench. Even the Greens party see the merit in this proposition, and they're usually the last to come to the party when it comes to sensible opportunities to support the small-business sector. That should be very telling to the government. It should send a message to the government that this is very sensible policy. It's a very sensible opportunity for them to get on board and send a unanimous message to the small-business community that we back them to make decisions, to put their money on the line, to make investment decisions, to grow their business and to grow our economy. That's what increasing this threshold will do: send exactly that message to the small business community at exactly the time they need to hear it. I commend concurring with the Senate amendments to the House.

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