Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

That'll be the day! This bill seeks to achieve several outcomes. It's going to create a mechanism to permit the Minister for Small Business to direct an entity found to be in the slowest 20 per cent of payers overall or by industry to make enhanced disclosures to the regulator. It is also going to name and shame. It's going to permit the minister to direct a slow-paying entity to state in public-facing materials that it is a slow small business payer, provide information on how to access its payment times reports and allow the regulator to record in the register that an entity is a slow small business payer.

There may be any number of reasons, good and bad, for a business to be tardy in paying its bills. Does it deserve to be named and shamed? According to the government, yes. The Payment Times Reporting Amendment Bill is going to expand the functions of the regulator to include research, publishing and outreach with respect to payment outcomes, update the objects of the act to reflect the purpose of improving payment outcomes for small businesses, incentivise large businesses to make prompt payments, streamline reporting obligations and decrease the regulatory burden experienced by reporting entities. It will also enable consolidated reporting in accordance with Australian accounting standards to improve the quality, completeness and comparability of data reported on the register, so it is going to be more onerous on small businesses.

Whilst the coalition supports the measures this bill contains, we need to remember that in everything we do in this place that there are people out there who are doing it really tough. There are small business operators who are finding it very difficult to keep opening their doors and to keep the lights on. That's not just because their power bills are going through the roof, but because of the red tape and bureaucracy that this Labor government seems to always want to foist on small businesses.

Not many of those opposite—a few, I will admit and agree—have actually run a small business. Many of them have actually run picket lines out the front of businesses, but not many of them have actually operated a small business. I have, I know, and it's tough. I know the member for Page has run a successful business. We come to this place with that knowledge, expertise and skin in the game. We've put own hard earned on the line to build a better local economy and to help our families—at the end of the day, that's first and foremost.

This government is doing so much to impede and hamper small business smoothness and efficiency. I will acknowledge the work being done by Bruce Billson, a former small business minister, heading up the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman's Office. Small businesses should go to ASBFEO and have a look at what they have available on their website, because it is fast, it's knowledgeable and it will help a small business operate in these difficult times, in these trying circumstances. It will help them with tax and it will help them navigate their way through the various acts, and it is to be encouraged and admired.

I worry about small business. I worry about the fact that unions are dictating the terms to this government, as you would expect. There's always a payday when a Labor government is elected because they've got to pay back their union masters. They've got to pay back those who pull the strings. They are mere puppets of the trade union movement, and that only affects and impedes and slows small businesses across Australia, who need every bit of help from this disappointing government.

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