Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I am particularly pleased, as you would be if you were in my position, to speak on this motion by the member for Ford. I congratulate and commend him for the motion. I look at our commitment in the government to small business, and I compare and contrast that to what I saw in six years of Labour, as you did, Mr Deputy Speaker, sitting on the opposition benches. It was a dreadful time. I am a small businessperson myself. There are over 12,000 in my electorate. I saw Labor's small business record, and it was basically a demonstration of how to consign the small business sector to irrelevance when in government. I watched a parade of six ministers in six years. No wonder 485,000 jobs were lost in small business after Labor's six years and six small business ministers.

In contrast, we have a coalition government that is absolutely committed to small business. The member for Dunkley, the small business minister, was absolutely passionate and committed in his time as a shadow minister and is now, in his time as minister, a very passionate, committed, enthusiastic Minister for Small Business. To think that we have placed small business in cabinet—every time there is a decision made in this government, small business is at the table. That shows a really genuine commitment to small business. It is a very practical demonstration to small business. When I look back to those six years, it was like a revolving door of ministers, and that in itself gave a very clear, dreadful message to small business that they were not relevant to Labor. Well, they have seen the opposite under this government.

There are two million actively trading small businesses in Australia—many in my electorate and many in your electorate, Mr Deputy Speaker—and that is why we took 20 really strong policy ideas to the 2013 election. We knew how important small business is, and we see in the 2015-16 budget the largest jobs and small business package in the nation's history—a practical demonstration of our commitment. There is 5.5 billion in new incentives to help small businesses start to grow, to thrive, and to help create further jobs. The small business company tax cut is the lowest rate in almost 50 years. The immediate tax deduction for small business assets purchased, up to the value of $20,000, means a lot if you are small business person. Plus there was the five per cent tax discount for unincorporated businesses.

Small business is critical in my part of the world. In small communities they are absolutely critical. The one thing that they are great at, besides providing the core services in small communities where nobody else is, is often providing a young person with their first job and an older person with their last job. Besides the fact that they employ nearly half of the Australian working population—with that first job and that last job—their presence in small communities is just extraordinary. My local Harvey Bulls footy club won their first final in the Southwest Football League over the weekend. But let me tell you that they could not survive without the support of the small businesses which are in our community and which sponsor them, as do a whole range of other community service organisations, such as volunteer emergency services. They are the small businesses which, in small communities, right around Australia are providing that level of support. That is why the motion, moved by the member for Forde, is so important and that is why our commitment to small business is what it is, Mr Deputy Speaker. Like you, I am proud of our record and commitment to small business.

When you look at other practical matters that the government have engaged in for small business, such as capital gains tax relief, the ability for start-ups to immediately deduct professional expenses when they start a business, expanding the tax concessions for employee share schemes, you will see that there is a whole raft of initiatives that in practical terms demonstrate our very genuine commitment to small business.

I want to go back to the member for Dunkley, the Minister the Small Business. He is absolutely dedicated to the small business sector. When you are in a gathering of small business people and the minister is there, there is no doubt that the people in the room have absolute confidence in him and the government, not only in the way that he delivers but also in the way we have demonstrated very clearly. And this motion by the member for Forde is another practical example of that commitment for small business.

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to pledge my support for small businesses right across this country. Members know of my love for small business. I ran my own small business—my own microbusiness—for 10 years before entering politics. And members know of my love of Canberra small businesses, which I meet with regularly.

My love for small business is one reason why I fought so strongly against the government's budget last year, because I knew the damage it would do to the Canberra business community. I met with businesses during my business walk-arounds in Fyshwick, Phillip, Woden, Tuggeranong and Manuka. I chatted to the barber in Tuggeranong whose business is just behind my electorate office and whose business was on the brink of collapse. The main reason these businesses were doing it so tough was the Abbott government's cuts to public sector jobs.

We have lost more than 8,500 public servants from Canberra since the Abbott government came to office. And those who were lucky enough to hold on to their jobs are living and were living then in constant fear of losing them. What happened last year? Canberrans closed their wallets completely after the budget and, as a result, Canberra's businesses suffered. As a result, we saw building approvals in the ACT drop. Our GDP and retail growth was lagging behind the rest of the country and business confidence was the lowest in the country. So I wholeheartedly refute the part of this motion that claims the government 'has started to arrest the decline in the small business environment overseen by the previous Labor government'.

This government is the cause of the decline in small business activity in my electorate. And since the Abbott government handed down its Growing Jobs and Small Business package in this year's budget, our economy still has not recovered. On a national level, gross domestic product grew just 0.2 per cent in the three quarters to the end of June, compared with 0.9 per cent in the first quarter. On a local level, the September figures from the ACT Treasury show our housing and construction industry is still suffering with the number of new building commencements down more than 14 per cent from March. The ACT's tourism sector is also struggling, with our room occupancy rate also lower than it was in June. Our population growth has halved since late 2012.

Our employment figures continue to dive, with unemployment also in the red. It is not just unemployment in the ACT that is rising. Australia's unemployment rate reached 6.3 per cent in July. The truth is it would take years for our economy to recover from these Public Service job cuts, just as it did in 1996 under the last coalition government. It took five years for Canberra to recover from the Howard government's slash and burn to 15,000 public service jobs here in Canberra and 30,000 jobs nationally. That saw businesses close down, business bankruptcies go up, non-business bankruptcies go up, local shops close down, people leave town and house prices plummet. That is what the coalition did to this city—the nation's capital—in 1996, when it got rid of 15,000 public servants. You cannot suck 15,000 jobs out of an economy without it having an enormous impact not just on small businesses but also on housing prices and population growth. As I said, what happened to Canberra? It sent us into an economic slump for five years. The latest round of the coalition government's cuts to the Public Service is also having an enormous impact on our economy, as I have just outlined.

I am not going to stand here and commend the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the Minister for Small Business on their management of the economy as those opposite have done. I am not going to commend them after they have doubled the deficit to more than $35 billion. I am certainly not going to commend them for sacking 8½ thousand public servants in Canberra alone. Their track record on small business in this town is not one to be proud of. If they actually spoke to their ACT senator and got his thoughts on it, they would get that feedback from him. It is not a record to be proud of. As I said, you cannot take 15,000 jobs out of an economy without it having an enormous impact on small business—as happened in 1996—and you certainly cannot take 8½ thousand Public Service jobs out of an economy, as we have seen over the last two years, and expect it not to have an impact on small business. It has had an enormously detrimental effect on small business.

In fact, the track record of the coalition in Canberra is not one to be proud of, full stop. They have a complete disdain and contempt for Canberra, a complete disdain and contempt for public servants and a complete disdain and contempt for Canberra small businesses. I am thinking here about the barber at Tuggeranong. Their empty words about how wonderful the government is just do not cut it. (Time expired)

Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure to talk about small business, which, of course, is at the heart of a more prosperous future for my home state of Tasmania and our country. There is no doubt that the government's 2015 budget was a historic game changer when it comes to helping hardworking small business men and women. In our small business package we committed $5.5 billion, recognising that the almost 800,000 Australian small businesses are in the vanguard of the Abbott government's economic recovery strategy. Many of the 71,700 small businesses in Tasmania have already benefited from this package.

We see corporate tax rates, for example, for small business dropping from 30 per cent to 28½ per cent. That means that 96 per cent of all Australian businesses can benefit from reduced taxes and from bringing forward their investment through the lowest corporate tax rates in 50 years. Accelerated depreciation arrangements, for example, enable an immediate tax deduction on any asset they buy costing up to $20,000. So many small business owners have already taken advantage of these measures, helping to optimise their cash flow and create new local jobs. The Australian Bureau of Statistics, contrary to some of the material we have heard from those opposite, revealed on 29 June that the number of jobs in small business has increased by 146,000 under the Abbott government. Compare that to the almost half a million jobs lost in small business under Labor and Labor-Green governments.

Local examples of business winners from this small business package are plentiful. Just over a week ago, I was enjoying a refreshing beverage with the Treasurer, Joe Hockey, in the Metz cafe bar in Launceston—an excellent establishment. If I recall correctly, we were enjoying a Wizard Smith, a wonderful local brew made by Boag's Brewery. I could digress and more fully describe this magnificent pale ale, but I would be sailing very close to the wind on standing order 76, so I will not do that.

We were approached by the proprietor of that establishment, a man called Jason Mercer. He and a number of others wanted to have a photo taken with the Treasurer, and he wanted to tell us about his personal benefits under the small business package that we have delivered. He wanted to say how much he valued the instant asset write-off provisions. He had bought a new till system, computer equipment and other items. Jason is one of the many small business owners in Bass who have benefited from the Abbott government's small business package. My Boags beverage had never tasted sweeter than it did as I realised that a strategic economic policy decision in Canberra had had such a beneficial effect at the tactical coalface of small business in my electorate of Bass. So when we say that the coalition is the best friend that small business has ever had, it is because we act to demonstrate that fact. Minister Billson has done an exceptional job in the small business portfolio delivering these great benefits.

Isn't it comforting to have had some stability in the small business sector? The audacity of the member of Canberra in talking about Labor's record with small business when they had six small business ministers in six years of Labor and Labor-Greens government—six of them. Not only did that revolving door fail to help small business but also the Labor-Greens government added lead to their saddlebags. They imposed a carbon tax that made small business electricity costs higher. Over 20,000 new or amended regulations were introduced, wrapping our small businesses in an endless litany of red tape. Stop/start policy changes cost small business millions in compliance costs. I mention here in particular the disastrous fuel watch policy Labour introduced that would have cost petrol stations—many of which are small businesses—$4,000 a year in compliance costs.

Just when small business is looking to benefit from the wonderful trifecta of free-trade deals negotiated under the Abbott government, Labor threatens once again to derail those efforts with a xenophobic CFMEU campaign. Instead of backing the hardworking businessmen and women of our country, they instead back corrupt, militant unions like the CFMEU. They engage in the most false, xenophobic and irresponsible campaign in recent memory. They demonise China, our biggest trading partner, when even wiser heads like Bob Hawke, Simon Crean, Bob Carr—even most of the Labor premiers—say, 'Don't be so stupid as to wreck the China free trade deal, which is great for our economy and great for local jobs.' But it should not surprise us that the opposition leader ignores such good advice. He has got form. Standing at that union rally in Adelaide last September—TheAustralian said it was an inexcusable performance that stank of racist and protectionist rhetoric.

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to use this opportunity to draw the government's attention as strongly as I can to the current problems facing the taxi industry and the many self-employed small businesses that are part of it. State and federal governments have failed to give taxi drivers a level playing field against unfair competition from Uber. The fact that this company facilitates a network of small businesses operating outside Australian laws has presented significant challenges to regulators at both the state and federal levels, according to Mr David Samuel, the CEO of the Victorian Taxi Association. Uber takes 20 per cent of every trip, and questions remain as to whether they are compliant with Australian taxation laws. This is a company valued at $5 billion, facilitating trips for profit on behalf of its 'partners' in Australia which they claim should be treated differently to other commercial passenger vehicle service providers. Taxi drivers are not afforded a turnover threshold, but collect and pay GST from the first dollar through the fare box. This fits into a bigger picture of the offshoring of profits derived from business in Australia to avoid contributing their fair share to our economy.

Uber, which began in San Francisco in 2009, now operates in more than 50 countries, with 300,000-plus driver partners in the US alone. In Australia it is moving towards 20,000 driver partners. The difference between Uber and many of its competitors is that most of Uber's competitors operate legally within the legal confines of the countries they are in. Uber, on the other hand, is paying for its drivers to ignore local laws. In Australia it is contesting decisions across state and federal jurisdictions. In Queensland driver partners have been hit with more than $1.7 million in fines for providing unlicensed taxi services. Despite it being Uber practice around the world to pay drivers' fines, the fines in Queensland are being disputed and have not yet been paid.

As reported in The Conversation in August:

Uber seems to have made a strategic decision to take the legal hits associated with flouting local regulations, with the view that this is unlikely to land a knockout blow.

…   …   …

Uber also wants to manipulate regulation that extends well beyond labour law, in order to boost its competitive advantage.

The Conversation outlines:

Uber is in a global fight to win a regulatory environment favourable to its business model. This fight largely relies on ambiguity on how Uber should be defined as a company. Uber steadfastly denies any suggestion that it is a service provider, insisting instead that it's a "technology company" … "seamlessly connecting riders to drivers".

Laws and regulations must address the emergence of what is called the 'electronic hail'. The emergence of this type of product has meant that the distinction between hail and pre-booked work has been significantly blurred. The legislation needs to embrace and define the term 'electronic hail', as distinct from a pre-booking or a street hail or a rank hail. Simply imposing hire car regulations upon ride-hail type services is not sufficient. Hire car regulations differ from taxis on the grounds that hire car companies accept only pre-booked services for a different market to taxis and thus have the ability to pre-plan journeys. This is not the case with an electronic hail. Any regulation should be based on the need to address a market failure and to ensure community, passenger and driver safety. Because the model is a hybrid, regulations and hire car regulation need to apply to it. This definition of the product also provides clear justification as to why the price these services charge should be regulated by a maximum fare. Customers are not able to make an informed choice because of the immediacy of the booking. Furthermore, paying more will not necessarily see the service delivered in a more timely fashion, because during periods of high demand the wait times are constrained by supply across all services. Employing surge pricing in periods of high demand is an abuse of market power and is price gouging because the product the customer receives does not alter in either quality or timeliness, despite them being asked to pay more.

As the taxi association has said on numerous occasions, if fair regulation were to be removed, the biggest loser would be the consumer burdened with higher prices. The requirement in relation to ride hailing has to enable taxis to be allowed to compete. Taxi drivers deserve better than the unfair competition and insecure future to which they are subject. I urge both federal and state governments in their examination of this to make sure that the many small businesses who have invested very large sums of money in relation to taxis have an opportunity to have a secure future. They are entitled to this.

Karen McNamara (Dobell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Forde for bringing this motion to the House. I join with my colleagues on this side of the House today on the second anniversary of the best thing to happen for small business—the election of the Abbott coalition government. We join today to acknowledge the small business owners of Australia.

Owning and operating a small business is not an easy task, and on this side of the House we represent a government doing everything possible to assist the small business sector. Those opposite, unfortunately, left a tragic legacy on Australian small business. During the six years of the previous Labor government, around 519,000 jobs were lost in small business. This meant that around 1,544 jobs were lost each week. In contrast, in the two years since this government was elected, 335,000 jobs have been created. Labor promised a one-in, one-out approach to regulation, but they introduced more than 21,000 new and amended regulations and only repealed a fraction of this number. Under the current government to date, we have delivered a total deregulatory saving of $2.45 billion.

As to whom to acknowledge for this total contempt for small business, it is difficult as the previous Labor government had six different small business ministers, five of those within a 15-month period. This is an indication of how little commitment Labor had to this sector. When the Howard government left office, with regard to government regulation Australia ranked 68th on the Global Competitiveness Index. After six years of Labor, Australian business was so tangled up in red tape that we slid down the ladder to 128th place. This meant that 127 countries had less of a regulatory impost and government red-tape burden than Australia.

This kind of environment was disastrous for the Australian economy and only with the economic management of the Abbott coalition government has the situation improved. Part of the 2015-16 budget was the delivery of the largest small business package in the nation's history, worth $5.5 billion. This package builds on what we have already achieved for small business and will assist small businesses to invest more, grow more, and employ more.

The package includes tax cuts for all Australian small businesses to encourage investment and growth. These tax cuts include a 1.5 per cent company tax rate cut for incorporated small business, resulting in the lowest company tax rate since 1967. Further tax relief is provided in the package for unincorporated small businesses, by way of a five per cent tax cut. Providing incorporated small businesses with a reduced rate of company tax will improve small business cash flow. It will also promote growth and help small business compete more effectively with larger businesses and create jobs. It is estimated that up to 780,000 companies could potentially benefit from this measure.

The raising of the threshold at which small businesses can immediately deduct business assists is another initiative within the Growing Jobs and Small Business package. The threshold previously stood at $1,000. However, as of 12 May 2015 assets worth up to $20,000 can be immediately deducted.

I reflected earlier on the damage done to the small business economy in Australia by the multitude of former Labor small business members, but it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the contribution of the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition should be ashamed for making unfounded announcements to small businesses in his budget reply speech. The most deplorable point is that his announcements ignored the two-thirds of small businesses which are not structured as companies.

Ninety-six per cent of all Australian businesses are classed as small businesses employing over 4½ million people and producing over $330 billion of our nation's economic output per year. There is no doubt small business is at the forefront of Australian jobs and growth, and the coalition is delivering for small businesses now and into the future.

Over 8,000 small businesses are based in the Dobell electorate, with this sector collectively our largest employer. Recently I had the opportunity to meet with small business owners Brendan and Nancy Small, owner-operators of family business SpotGo. Businesses like SpotGo have never had support from the federal government to the extent they are now. They are now receiving assistance. They are even exploring exporting opportunities into China, under the China FTA.

Unlike the previous Labor government, which neglected small business, this government is providing unprecedented opportunity. I commend the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the Minister for Small Business, as well as paying tribute to the small business owners of Dobell and thank them for their contribution to the Dobell economy.

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

If only the words spoken by members opposite were true. If only this was a government for small business. If only the policies it introduced would make the difference that it claims to have made. But let us look at the facts. Business confidences has been low since this government was elected. The only time it has been lower than under this government in the last 20 years was in the worst year of the global financial crisis. Other than that, business confidence is at some of its lowest levels that we have seen for a long time. Growth is down, capex is down, terms of trade are at appalling levels, debt and deficit have doubled, wages growth is down and confidence, as I said, has largely flatlined. Unemployment is up and the number of job hours that are actually worked and paid for is down. That is something that this government does not talk about much.

They talk about the number of people looking for work going up and it is. That is not surprising when you cut their family payments. It is not surprising when you cut family payments that so many woman are returning to the workforce—and most of the jobs created were actually part-time jobs for women. There has been a loss of full-time jobs, a loss of hours worked in total, but an increase in the number of women returning to the workforce.

But I want to return to small business. There is no doubt that if Australia wants to prosper in this rapidly changing world where supply chains are fragmented and businesses are forming relationships all around the world and finding profound new ways to do business it will be the small businesses of Australia that determine whether we succeed in that world. It will be the small businesses of Australia, not the big ones, that are the first ones to break the rules and find new ways of working, to move forward through those fragmented supply chains and to find a place for themselves in the world.

But what we have seen from this government is the destruction of the very economic structures that support the development of those businesses and those supply chains. We have seen the decimation of the car industry and, with that, the hundreds of thousands of people working in small businesses all around the country who are in these complex and highly skilled fragmented supply chains in this country. When you wipe out the Australian car manufacturing industry you also make it incredibly difficult for Australia to retain the skills that it will need for these small businesses to participate in this fragmented global supply chain. You effectively take them out of action at the very time when they should be leading the Australian charge to export into those supply chains.

Look at renewable energy: there has been an 80 per cent reduction in investment in renewable energy, mainly by small companies and small businesses in the renewable sector. In Parramatta we had 14 solar installers two years ago and now we have one. That is 13 businesses that were in a growth sector and that should actually be working on the future industries of Australia that are gone. They are gone because of this government.

Look what the government did in the first budget to anything to do with innovation. They closed down Commercialisation Australia, the Innovation and Investment Fund, and Clean Energy Finance Corporation. They were their targets—innovation was their target in that first budget. Scrapping the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, which they are still struggling to do but they are weakening it day by day. Enterprise Connect has also gone. A program, acknowledged by industry to be one of the most successful in our history, has gone—gone! Anything that was about innovation, anything that was about the future and anything that would support Australian business and skills as we move forward in this incredibly competitive world has gone. What do we get instead? What is the signature? What is the only thing that they have to be proud of? It is the reintroduction of an instant tax write-off, which they abolished a year earlier. They abolished the instant tax write-off, which was a Labor policy, and the loss carry-back scheme and the accelerated vehicle depreciation when they first got elected because it was bad policy. Then, a year and a half later, they renounce it, albeit larger, but only for two years and claim that it was a great boon. It was a boon when it was there before. It was a good policy when they scrapped it. So the one thing they can claim is to reinstate a policy that they scrapped.

Everything else that the government do—everything—is about shutting down Australia's future. It is about reducing our skills and reducing the capacity of our small businesses to take on the world and become part of these massive international fragmented global supply chains. It is as though they belong in the last century and, unfortunately, they are taking us back there with them.

Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.