David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs and Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy. Will the minister advise the House of the results of recent small business surveys? Are there any obstacles to economic recovery by small businesses?

Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Finance Minister on Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Lindsay for his question and for the opportunity to join him a couple of weeks ago on ‘Pollies for Small Business Day’, where we visited Gloria Jean’s at St Marys. I reckon I made 100 cups of coffee in proper coffee cups. It was a great testament to the commitment of the member for Lindsay to his local small business community.

At 11 o’clock today the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry released its latest small business survey. It shows that small business conditions have reached their highest level since November 2008. In fact, the expected future economic performance is reported to have ‘surged’—and that is the word that is used in that survey. These survey results build on other recent surveys showing a rebound in business and consumer confidence. The encouraging boost in small business confidence is due, at least in part, to the government’s economic stimulus package and its positive effects on jobs and the economy.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members—A very small part!

Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Finance Minister on Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We hear from those opposite: ‘A very small part.’ They are all over the place on this, as we know. Last week’s Dun and Bradstreet survey concludes:

The improvement … is a sign that the economic stimulus has been successful in encouraging household spending.

The ACCI survey reveals that small business expects conditions to remain quite challenging in the coming months. One of the main constraints on investment identified by small business is state government regulations. The Rudd government, through the Council of Australian Governments, is cutting red tape in no fewer than 27 areas of regulatory reform, moving Australia towards a seamless national economy.

The opposition leader has hit on the idea of cutting business red tape, too. Indeed, he started a competition to nominate the worst, most idiotic piece of red tape. That competition is being run by my counterpart, the shadow minister for small business—and it is now 447 days since he last asked a question of me. I have decided to enter that competition. In fact, I have two entries. The first is the current requirement on anyone providing financial advice to give a 100-page disclosure statement to each client—introduced by the former Liberal government and being removed by the Rudd Labor government. The second entry is the obligation on small businesses to send superannuation guarantee payments to the individual super funds of each and every employee—introduced by the former Liberal government and being removed by the Rudd Labor government. So I went looking for the stupidest piece of red tape and found that the opposition leader need only look in his own backyard. This is yet another example of bad judgment from the opposition leader—the same bad judgment he showed when he argued against the government’s stimulus package.

It is time that the opposition leader embraced microeconomic reform, as we remove the impediments to small business success on the road to recovery. But the opposition leader has given responsibility for policy development to the backbench, to the member for Menzies, the architect of Work Choices, which frees up the entire coalition frontbench to engage in its campaign of fear and smear. We know the opposition leader took policy responsibility from the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party because whenever she submitted a policy idea he somehow felt that he had seen it somewhere before. The opposition should abandon its opportunistic campaign of fear and smear and get on board with the Rudd government’s program of economic reform for recovery.