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

There were 249,179 small businesses across regional Australia as at 30 June 2023. That is a big number—a quarter of a million small businesses—and that's just in New South Wales. We know that right across the country small business absolutely dominates the economic landscape, because it is in small businesses where they employ most of the private sector. Most of the people paying tax receipts are employed by small businesses. Small-business owners and operators, we have to applaud them. We have to thank them because they are the ones who pay their workers first and who often go without. They go without pay in many instances. They go without holidays. They make sure that the lifeblood of the Australian economy endures.

I have to say that across my Riverina electorate—and all politics is local—the Riverina small businesses absolutely dominate. Indeed, they contribute these gross domestic products. It's $739 million by Bland Shire, centred on West Wyalong. Take the figure for Coolamon; it's a quarter of a billion dollars. In the Cootamundra and Gundagai region it's $833 million. In Junee it's $464 million. There's $234 million contributed by Lockhart, and so on and so forth. In Temora it's $549 million. Then we come to Wagga Wagga and it's $6.8 billion. They are big figures. Indeed, what we should be doing is enhancing small business, not hampering it.

I have to say that the Labor government has constricted and constrained small business by its policies, by making sure that, for instance, the instant asset tax write-off is limited. I know this was increased ever so slightly in the last budget, but it was far higher under a coalition government. What small businesses were able to do, if they were, say, a tradie, farmer or small-business operator who required a vehicle, was go and write off the entire cost of that vehicle. But when it came back to $20,000 under Labor those provisions weren't possible because you can't purchase too much of a car for $20,000 unless it's one of those clapped-out clunkers. We all remember the clunker policy that Labor introduced in 2010, but we won't go there.

We know that small business should be preserved and protected, but, unfortunately, Labor does not. What they have done with their industrial relations policy and high-taxing regime is put every roadblock in the way of small businesses. No-one feels this more than those in regional Australia, and no-one feels it more in regional Australia than our farmers, who grow our food and fibre. You only have to look at last year's budget to see the largest amount of money for agriculture, for that vital sector, was $107 million for shutting down the live sheep trade. So there's Labor. They're paying more than $100 million to shut down a sector of small-business owners and operators who will be here, out the front, tomorrow. And I welcome those Labor members, particularly those West Australian Labor members, if they're not prepared to address the rally, to go and at least listen to the rally. If they care about their constituency and if they care about small businesses, listen to what those small-business owners and operators, particularly the Keep the Sheep farmers, have to say about Labor Party policies.

Of the 2½ million small businesses in Australia, 60 per cent were in greater capital city areas and 31 per cent were in regional areas. I have to say that I'm proud of the third, or thereabouts, of those in regional areas. I'm proud of all small businesses. As a former small business minister, I'm proud of what they do. I would say to those small-business owners and operators to look at the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman's website, ASBFEO. It is a website well worth going to because, no matter who's in government, there's something there for those small-business owners and operators to help them get through the myriad of tax reform and legislation as far as IR is concerned.

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