Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Small Business. Minister, in February the Prime Minister announced plans for emergency assistance concessional loans of up to $100,000 to small businesses following a natural disaster. Can the minister explain to the House why bushfire affected small businesses in New South Wales are not receiving the assistance the Prime Minister promised to provide?

Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question, and I echo the thoughts that we all have for those who have suffered from the bushfires. Our thoughts are with them at a difficult time of recovery and we are very fortunate that the firefighters have made such a wonderful contribution to their communities. In addition to that effort, there is also a concerted and coordinated effort to help those communities recover. I acknowledge my friend and colleague Mrs Markus, who has done an outstanding job supporting her community. We have already seen the activation of the immediate defence response arrangements, and some of that includes assistance for small business. Unless you missed it you would have seen that those small businesses directly affected by the natural disaster also have access to assistance. What is different and what we are implementing is our election commitment to provide concessional loans to small businesses that have been indirectly affected.

I am sure the member would realise that if your entire business interests were affected by a natural disaster, even though your business might not be in the area that is affected, it can have enormous implications for your business. I am proud to have supported and to have worked alongside our Prime Minister on this, after six years when Labor did not have the wit, could not see those connections, failed to act and was completely incapable of recognising those indirect effects. What you have seen is our government implementing those commitments. I acknowledge the Minister for Justice for his contribution to that work. I acknowledge the Minister for Human Services. I thank the Prime Minister for embracing this policy initiative and we continue to roll out our response in partnership with the New South Wales government to support those affected communities. And guess what? It includes the indirect impacts on small businesses, an insightful measure advocated by the coalition that your crowd did not have the wit to get onto in six years. We are getting on with implementing our commitments.

While I am on that topic, why don't you let us get on with all of our commitments in the small business portfolio—like the abolition of the carbon tax, like implementing our commitment to improve the mining tax, like getting red tape and compliance burdens down, like doing all those things to put the business back into small business. We are doing this not only for those communities not affected by natural disasters; we are doing it for those communities who are directly affected by natural disasters, and we are implementing our policy commitment to support those businesses indirectly affected by natural disasters. Why don't you just support that effort and recognise that it is a measure you guys did not have the wit to implement in six years?