Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The exciting news is that the Socceroos are off to Brazil. They had a 1-0 win tonight against Iraq, and, rightly, the team will be recognised as national heroes. Our nation will get behind that team and support them. They will take on the world with our best wishes and our support.

What will not be celebrated tonight, but should be celebrated every day, are our national heroes: the small business men and women of this country. They apply themselves. They take risks. They create rewards and opportunities for themselves, their communities and those who depend upon them for their livelihoods, but they will not get the accolades that will be showered on the Socceroos. In fact, the opposite so often applies. Many small businesses that are competing for markets here against overseas competitors need to be world-class every day. The small business manufacturers need to be world-class every day. They have a World Cup contest not just in Brazil but around the globe every day to compete for markets and to try to run profitable enterprises in this country, which amongst them employ almost half the private sector workforce in this nation and provide about one quarter of the gross domestic product. They deserve our support and encouragement.

As I have travelled across this country for four years now, advocating strongly and consistently for better policy to support those courageous men and women, I think the bell is starting to toll for this Labor government that has failed to take any interest in their wellbeing, success, viability and contribution to our national economy and our communities. You need not look too far. The clarion call from Peter Anderson of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in his National Press Club address last week should have been ringing in the ears of Labor members. Those on the coalition side understand the grief and pain and the sense of a lack of support and a lack of opportunity that have been the product of this Labor government.

On this side of the House, we have been campaigning to put the 'business' back into 'small business' for years, up against a government that seems only to be interested in the businesses at the big end of town or in union business. That is all we have seen—not creating an environment of support and not creating a sense of hope, reward and opportunity that are so desperately needed.

Mr Anderson characterised this climate, he said:

I'm talking about the actions of government and how your interests usually end up on the losing side when hard choices are made.

This is the message that I have been sharing and hearing amongst the small business community. This is the message that the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and a number of small business organisations have encapsulated in their 'Small Business: Too Big to Ignore' campaign—a sentiment that we on this side have been advocating for years.

But what do we see from this government? We understand that they had no new ideas at the 2010 election and simply went to that election without any new policies and without any new contribution to support the enterprise of small business men and women and family enterprises in this country. Will we see the same again? In the intervening period, the only policy initiatives that the government have come forward with have been diluted and poorly executed carbon copies of coalition policies. They cannot think of any of their own; they have had to pinch the coalition's small business policy agenda.

As Mr Anderson and the small business community has made clear, and as is outlined in so many of the examples calling for policy action, the coalition already have policy commitments in so many of these crucial areas. We want to see a turnaround in the halving of small business formation that has occurred under Labor. We want to have it recognised that 243,000 fewer Australians are employed by small businesses in this country than when Labor was elected. We want it understood that there are now 3,000 fewer employing small businesses now than when Labor was elected. This needs to turn around. If you think about what the over-the-horizon economy looks like for this nation—when this government that we have under Labor continues to wallow in the good fortune of the mining boom and people wonder about the diverse, resilient economy we really need for the future—small business needs to be front and centre in that vision and ambition.

That will be the case if the coalition can form government after the next election. I have been there for four years. I have seen six ministers now, very few of them with any idea at all. But consistent amongst them is one shared point: they do not have a feel for, a commitment to or a belief in small business. The coalition do, and I hope we have the opportunity— (Time expired)