Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I'll finish my remarks; I've got two minutes to go.

I will complete my remarks, and then we can talk. The Leader of the House has just made a claim. I'm sure he's being entirely honest with the House in saying that he was unaware, but I am shocked that he was unaware that the opposition moved this motion to bring on the bill in February, because we were conscious of the fact that small businesses in this country cannot just turn on a dime and make investment decisions—as I said.

There's an urgency here, which is why I'm moving to suspend the standing and sessional orders. The other reason why we need to suspend the standing and sessional orders to bring this on immediately is that, somehow, the government's been claiming that it's not their decision to park this bill, that it wasn't their decision to put this on ice, meaning that small businesses are now in limbo. They're claiming that, somehow, it was the decision of the Senate or of the parliament.

That was directly an accusation or assertion made by the Treasurer today in question time. Now, again, if the Treasurer is suggesting he was entirely unaware of a motion brought to this House seeking to bring this on for debate, it is negligence in the extreme. Small businesses deserve better from their government. Small businesses deserve to be at the centre of the government's thinking, not some afterthought or irritation.

So suspending standing orders is critical on this matter today, because, quite frankly, we have seen a government all at sea on this issue. They don't know what they stand for. They don't know whether they support small businesses or not. Perhaps they will be shamed into supporting small businesses in the end, kicking and screaming. If that's the case and if that achieves an outcome for small business, then we'll be very pleased to have led that debate here in the chamber.

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