Teresa Gambaro (Petrie, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I would like to speak on the work the Howard government has done to support small business. Small businesses are a very active part of the economy of the Petrie electorate, as they are across Australia, and they provide a most incredible source of jobs, economic growth and innovation. Even the largest companies have started with spirited vision and realised their ambition and dreams.

I want to speak about one of those incredible companies. I recently had the great pleasure of visiting Paul Gripske of Roy Gripske and Sons, which is a small engineering parts specialist which is based at Narangba. With the assistance of an Australian government grant through the Commercial Ready Program, Paul was able to use the dollar-for-dollar funding to transform his prototype of a world first. It is an outdoor vacuum cleaner, which will be a sellable product pretty soon.

The Powerup Vac attachment converts a conventional outdoor blower machine into a vacuum unit that can suck up rubbish such as cans and bottles. It might sound a little uninteresting, but the applications are just amazing, particularly after major sporting events, major carnivals, State of Origin matches et cetera. The first of these outdoor vacuum cleaners will be available on the shelves by mid-2007. Those entrepreneurial developments are incredible and should always be encouraged to grow.

The feedback I get from businesses over the year is always about red tape and the way they operate their enterprises. The government has recognised that and made some real changes, particularly for small business. Recently and more broadly, the Australian government presented a final response on the Banks task force report Rethinking regulation. This was the report of the Taskforce on Reducing the Regulatory Burden on Business. The government agreed to 158 of the 178 recommendations, which cover a whole variety of sectors. The strengthened Office of Best Practice Regulation will act as a gatekeeper to stop red tape reaching the statute books in the first place. The federal government is working in other ways with state and territory governments to harmonise conveyancing laws et cetera to cut down red tape.

On a local government level we have provided $50 million worth of regulation reduction incentives to reduce compliance. Petrie’s 3,000 businesses will be able to continue their very valuable work unhindered by the enormous burden of accounting red tape, and simplified accounting methods will be developed. These businesses will be able to do what they are best at—developing innovation and employing many more Queenslanders.

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! In accordance with standing order 193 the time for members’ statements has concluded.