Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Small Business and Assistant Treasurer. Will the minister update the House on what actions the government is taking to strengthen small businesses, including in my electorate of Deakin?

Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to very much thank the member for Deakin for his question. He is a very powerful advocate for small business in his local community. He has more than 12,600 small businesses in his electorate of Deakin. As he travels around his electorate and I travel around the country, we talk to small businesses. We know that small business raise with us each and every day the need for strong competition policy. At the heart of strong competition policy is the need to have an effective misuse of market power provision. This is important for small business. There are two million small businesses in this country, which is 97 per cent of all business in this country. The government today has announced its response to the Harper reform recommendations to make sure that section 46 and the misuse of market power provision is fit for purpose and that it is not supporting anticompetitive conduct that impedes important and fundamental economic growth. By contrast out changes—the changes that have been announced today—protect the competitive process. They protect competition, which means that all business in this country can have a go. All businesses will be able to back themselves, be able to take risks and be able to engage in that entrepreneurial activity, which means that we can grow jobs in our economy.

The government has also announced that we accept other recommendations announced by the Harper review, and these will particularly help small business and directly benefit them—for example, access to remedies. The government is supporting the ACCC to take steps to improve communication to make sure that small business is not caught up in litigation but has access to alternative dispute resolution systems. That is also supported by the government's most recent announcement with the appointment of the Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman in Kate Carnell. She started work on Friday, and already she is hard at work speaking with small businesses, keeping them out of the court system and making sure that she can ensure that their disputes are resolved in advance of them getting into the court system.

We are also making sure that we support business by cutting company tax rates for small business by 1.5 per cent, giving a five per cent discount for unincorporated entities and allowing them to invest in their small businesses by giving them access to an instant asset write-off for eligible assets up to the value of $20,000, which lasts right up until 30 June 2017. We are also giving them access to finance through innovative new methods like our crowd-sourced equity funding platforms announced as part of the government's National Innovation and Science Agenda. We back small business. Why don't those opposite— (Time expired)