Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Small Business. In November 2013 the minister criticised instant asset write-offs saying:

… some of the instant asset write off arrangements were sold as if they were great for cash strapped small businesses but you needed the cash to start with to make the purchase.

Given the minister's criticism of Labor's instant asset write-off apply identically to the bills before the parliament today, is this the reason the government voted against passing its own small business legislation straight away?

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

A year and a half of famine, and what a feast! I can understand the member for Oxley getting a little excited and not being able to ask a succinct question. You have been denied the opportunity for so long. I admire the fact that you have finally had a chance and you have come out of the shelter. I sincerely thank the member for Oxley. He is talking about instant asset write-off—a measure, as I recall, originally introduced by the now Treasurer. It is a measure that Labor sought to present as some kind of sweetener for the sourness of your mining tax—a sweetener, as you stole a tax discount the Howard government put in place, that benefited more than 400,000 of our smallest businesses. Do you remember the entrepreneurs tax offset—that discount, that incentive, that important statement put in place by the Howard government that saw the income tax paid by our smallest businesses reduced? You abolished that. And then you went out to the small business community, who you had driven into a ditch through poor administration and through the introduction of a carbon tax, and said to the small businesses of Australia to either suck it up or pass it on to their customers when you knew darn well that was not possible. We are making a more attractive, better environment for small businesses. We have removed the carbon tax to take cost pressures out.

Mr Hawke interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Mitchell will desist.

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

We are reducing red tape to take the compliance burden out of the economy. We are creating the economic ecosystem to let small enterprises thrive and prosper. Part of that picture is our $5.5 billion Jobs and Small Business package. Why is that a priority? We have to recover 519,000 jobs, while you guys were on small business ni-nights and while you had a revolving door of small-business ministers—five in 15 months. The only small business to benefit under Labor was the printer. You had to keep printing new business cards. Five in 15 months! It was a printer-led recovery! I think it is time Labor fessed up to the fact that small business found the environment and the economy a harsh and hard place under Labor. We are turning that around to energise enterprise. It is a great small business package—the best this country has ever seen.

I tell you what, Member for Oxley, if you ever get to be a small business minister—oh, that's right, you are retiring, aren't you? You are being bounced out. If you ever got to be a small business minister, do you know what you would like to do? You would like to get the support of a great Prime Minister, a great Treasurer, a great bench of government MPs that are all about having small business running through their veins. Gee, I bet you wish you had that opportunity. Good luck with your retirement, Bernie.

Government members interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We will have some silence! Bravura performances may not be acknowledged in that way. We will have some order.