Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I wish to speak about the jobs forum that was held in my electorate on Friday, 6 March. We held it at St John’s Lutheran Church hall, at Dernancourt, in the north-east of my electorate. I was delighted that the Leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Turnbull, was able to make the trip to Adelaide to be there himself, as was my colleague the member for Boothby and shadow minister for vocational education and traineeships. It was quite appropriate for him to be there. The jobs forum primarily consisted of small business people and also students. We were fortunate to have students there from St Paul’s College at Gilles Plains and St Peters Girls school from Stonyfell and about 80 or so small business people who came to tell Malcolm Turnbull, Andrew Southcott and me, as the local member, some of the things that government could do to get out of their way and give them the opportunity to make profits and, by continuing in business, employ Australians. At the moment, that is the highest priority of anybody in government.

Some of the issues that they raised with us were obviously state issues. The primary concern amongst small business in South Australia from the state point of view is land tax. Land tax in South Australia has skyrocketed since the Rann government was elected. Land tax revenue has increased by a massive 265 per cent during the period of the Rann government. South Australia has the highest land tax for properties of $1 million or more of any state in the country, which of course is a tremendous disadvantage for business in South Australia. To put that in perspective, on a commercial property worth, say, $3 million—and many commercial properties would be about that price—South Australia’s land tax is $85,420; in New South Wales, it is $42,356; in Victoria, it is $24,975; in Queensland, $37,500; in Western Australia, $17,100; and, in Tasmania, $66,088. It is a major impediment to business in South Australia.

Many people would ask: why has the tax suddenly increased so gigantically in South Australia? The reason is that so-called antiavoidance provisions were added to the Land Tax Act by the Rann government. That has led to a massive increase in land tax being paid by business—it is the great cash grab of the Rann government. On the one hand we have the Rudd cash splash here in Canberra but in South Australia we have the Rann cash grab, which takes the money out of the hands of the taxpayers of South Australia and puts it into the hands of Mike Rann. So on the one hand Kevin gives and on the other Mike grabs.

Other issues were raised at the jobs forum, issues such as payroll tax, which has been a constant bugbear of small business throughout the ages, and, from a Commonwealth perspective, issues such as the award modernisation for hospitality, which is causing tremendous trouble and concern for those people with restaurants, cafes, bars et cetera. We heard stories this week and last week in Canberra about the effect on small business of the new award modernisation for the hospitality sector, and there is concern about the ageing population and the debt that future generations are going to have to pay back from, potentially, a lower revenue base. It took the Howard government 10 years to pay back $96 billion of debt in a growing economy. It is unbelievable to think how long it will take to pay back, in the shrinking economy that they have given us the $226 billion at least of debt that Labor have racked up.

People were obviously also concerned about the bureaucratic processing time for the no disadvantage test. A huge backlog of agreements have been delayed and are unable to be processed by the Rudd government. They were also concerned that the government should pay its bills within 30 days to assist with small business cash flows. Unbelievably, that does not happen under the Rudd government. Not once did any of these businesses ask for a handout. They simply asked for efficiency, for government to get out of the way to make it easier for them to employ their employees and to stay in business. It was a very successful jobs forum.