Sally Sitou (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move the motion relating to small businesses in the terms in which it appears on the Notice Paper:

That this House:

(1) recognises that Australia's millions of small businesses are the engine room of our nation's economy, at the heart of local communities across the country and employ millions of Australians;

(2) acknowledges that deadly flooding, bushfires and the COVID-19 pandemic have hit our small businesses hard which is why the Government is delivering for small business, helping them to bounce back from these challenges and improve their long-term resilience by:

(a) providing $15.1 million for small business owners across Australia to access free mental health and financial counselling support through the New Access for Small Business Owners and Small Business Debt Helpline programs;

(b) updating Commonwealth Procurement Rules so small businesses get a bigger slice of the $70 billion in contracts that the Commonwealth Government spends every year, with a 20 per cent target;

(c) reviewing the Payment Times Reporting Act 2020 to consider what other policy measures are necessary to achieve better payment terms and practices for small businesses;

(d) opening the first round of $62.6 million in energy efficiency grants to eligible small and medium businesses to help address rising costs; and

(e) passing legislation to make unfair contract terms illegal so small businesses can negotiate fairer agreements with large partners; and

(3) notes that the Government's wider agenda will benefit small businesses by:

(a) delivering an increase in skilled migration;

(b) accelerating the delivery of 465,000 additional fee-free TAFE places, with 180,000 to be delivered in 2023, helping get more skilled workers into the job market quicker; and

(c) delivering cheaper childcare to make life easier and increase workforce participation.

Small businesses make a significant contribution to our economy, accounting for about a third of Australia's GDP and employing more than 4.7 million people. In my electorate of Reid, small businesses are the lifeblood of the community. There are 26,000 small businesses located there. They not only grow our local economy but they also help weave together the social fabric. They have helped multiculturalism thrive by providing migrants with an opportunity to share their food and skills with their new communities. Burwood Chinatown is a wonderful example of that. Comprised of more than 50 hawker style food stores, business owners have brought their foods from their homelands to share. For example, malatang at the aptly named No. 1 Ma La Tang restaurant, shabu at Miyoshi, zong zi from Mum's Kitchen and even chicken feet from Chicken Feet King. These are all the cultural culinary delights finding a new audience in Sydney, and that is what makes small businesses so great—they add to our economy, employ locals and add to the dynamism of the place. They also give back to the community by supporting local schools, community organisations and sporting groups. For example, the Drummoyne chamber of commerce has a program to help high school students get early work experience so they can take that first critical step on the job ladder. They are fostering talent and building careers. The Majors Bay Road chamber of commerce regularly supports charities including the annual A Bloody Great Cause fundraiser to raise money for blood cancer research at Concord Hospital. Melanie Warman is the founder of Boobs on the Run, a small business supporting mums to get fit and take up running. She's also created a community of local mums who are supporting each other and building connections. That is what is so great about small businesses: they are of the community and give back to the community in so many ways.

But we know small-business owners have had it tough over the past few years because of the impact of COVID. That is why the role of government in supporting small businesses to thrive is so important. That's what the Albanese Labor government is doing. We've provided energy efficiency grants so small businesses can reduce their emissions and reduce their operating costs, because it shouldn't just be big businesses with sustainability departments who benefit from the transition to renewable energy. We are providing one million small businesses with energy price relief three $650 rebate for eligible businesses. We're providing direct assistance by temporarily increasing the instant asset write-off threshold to $20,000. And, in an ever-changing digital environment, this government is funding a cyberwardens program to help protect small businesses against cyberthreats.

We also know one of the biggest challenges facing small businesses is finding skilled workers. Whether they are an aged-care provider, childcare centre, mechanic or cafe, small businesses are in desperate need for workers. Unlike those opposite, we believe in helping to train up a skilled workforce. We believe in a strong TAFE sector. This government is urgently working to address the critical skills shortages small businesses are facing, providing fee-free TAFE places because this government recognises that an economy thrives when small businesses thrive, and that only happens when small businesses can get the skilled talent they need.

As a local representative, I also believe there are things I can do at the local level to support businesses in my area. Last week I invited Meta down to Rhodes to run a workshop for small businesses to provide them with training on how they can better use social media to connect with their customers. It's also why I put forward this bill: so I can speak about the wonderful businesses in my area and support them. I will continue to support them, promote them and advocate for small businesses in my local community.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is there a seconder for the motion?

Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Russell Broadbent (Monash, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm the product of small business. My grandfather was a grocer. My father was a draper. I ran retail Mensland stores, baizewear stores and drapery stores. I'm very proud of my background and the staff that worked with me all through those years. What I learned in my operation of small business—I never had any contact whatsoever with government through all my years. Neither did my father. Neither did my grandfather. We understood the rules. Our staff were under a national award, and we always paid over the award. There was never, ever a question about what the Broadbent companies paid their staff. We were proud of our relationship with our staff and, of course, with the community we represented, which changed as time went on.

When the Italian community became the dominant community within the Koo Wee Rup area, my father employed young Italian people in the business so they could communicate directly with their fellow Italians. It was the same with the Dutch and the Germans—the same with anybody that came into our district. We had people who could participate in community just by the basic operational relationship being everything. Sales were important, but relationship was always more important for our community. So, when Australians were looking very closely at the recent budget—especially the Australian small business community—they were thinking, 'Jesus, don't put another burden on top of us again. Don't tax us again. Don't make changes again.' And across my years in this place—as the member for Riverina would know—I've found that small business wants one thing from governments: 'Get out of my life. Don't make changes to IR that directly affect my business. That is not beneficial to us having relationship with our staff that we need to have.' Through my time, I did not meet small business owners who ripped off their staff. If they did, people didn't work for them, in those days.

Today, it's really hard to get staff in a small business. It's never been harder. I can't walk anywhere in my electorate of Monash where there's not a sign in a window saying, 'We are hiring; come and talk to us; we want you to work with us; just come to the front desk.' I think only three times in my years in the business young people walked into my shops and said: 'Can I talk to Russell, please? I'd like a job.' And all three of them said, 'I don't want to be paid; I just want a job so I can say on my resume that I had a job.' Of course, what my father, my brother and I did, when we did bring them in each time, was that we paid them—of course we paid them—for the work that they did. Those three people turned out to be some of the best people we had ever employed. More than that, they went on to do fantastic things within the business community, over and above what we could do for them within the structures of our business, because they got a little start with us.

I still meet young people now—well, I say 'young; they're 45 or 50—who say, 'Russell, you gave me my first job; you gave me my first opportunity.' That's what small business does, right across my community and from Darwin to Devonport and from Perth to Parramatta. They're the businesses out there that actually employ people every time and give people a start, give them a job after school, give them a job on Saturday morning, give them a job on Friday night. Yes, we have to employ them for three hours. We pay them for three hours, even if they do only two. But they learn what it is like to be in a very good small business, right across Australia. I know I identify today with the pride of every small business that makes the contribution that they make to our economy every day. I walk with them, I thank them, and I just ask government to get out of their way, because there's an opportunity here for another young person to get their first job.

Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to acknowledge the words of the previous speaker, the member for Monash. Just one piece of advice, though, is that we are supporting small business and interacting with them. So, it's not a case of government getting out of the way for small business. It's about how government can assist small business. That is what we're focused on: how government can help small businesses, which are the engine room of our national economy—and that's certainly the case in Darwin in my electorate.

Across our nation, small businesses employ millions of Australians, and they're really at the heart of our local communities. Of the 2.5 million businesses in Australia, about 98 per cent are small or medium enterprises. Obviously in recent years, for a variety of reasons, thousands of small businesses across our nation have done it really hard, whether because of the impacts of bushfire or of extensive flooding or, of course, because of COVID, when a lot of small businesses were seriously affected. But any time that businesses, particularly tourism-exposed businesses, are hit, that's a real hit to the local economy and to people's jobs. So, it has been a tough time, but that's why our government is delivering for small business, by helping them to bounce back from these challenges and to improve their long-term resistance. We're doing this by providing $15.1 million for small-business owners to access free mental health and financial counselling support. We're also updating Commonwealth procurement rules so that small businesses get a bigger slice of the $70 billion of contracts that the Commonwealth government spends every year, by having a 20 per cent target.

I'm very proud of the role that I've played, even from opposition, in leading some reform to the defence procurement rules and the packaging up of work that saw more local small and medium enterprises getting some of that work. I acknowledge that some of those reforms were taken up by the former government, but we're really driving it. It's so crucial to the defence industry, particularly in the Top End, where I represent the people of Darwin and Palmerston, but also across the Territory and across the country. When those big Commonwealth procurements are happening—multimillion- and even multibillion-dollar investments—we want our small and medium sized businesses to get the bulk of that work and to do very well.

One quick example is Pattemore Constructions, which is a First Nations business based in Mcminns Lagoon, just out of Darwin city. They were hired to refurbish three accommodation buildings at Tindal air base in a project valued at about $2.6 million—not in the billions, but millions of dollars—and that is great for their business. They can develop their business. They can bring on more employees. Those jobs are so important, and reforming those Commonwealth procurement rules is really important to that small business in my community because it helps provide a bit more of a level playing field when they're bidding for work. The answer is not getting government to abandon small business by, 'getting out of the way'. It's about asking: how do we help and actively assist small business? We're doing that in a number of ways.

The Albanese government is also reviewing the Payment Times Reporting Act 2020 to consider options to achieve better payment terms and practices for small business. This is another legacy that we've inherited. We have small businesses that are waiting ages for government to pay them. They have been really disadvantaged by a lack of quick payment by government, so we are going to sort that. In the opening round, the first round, there's been $62.6 million in energy efficiency grants to eligible small and medium businesses to help address these rising costs. We've also talked about support for small businesses to help them with their energy bills, which is absolutely essential. I'm proud that our government is committed to actively assisting small businesses across our great nation.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the outset I will commend the mover of this motion, the member for Reid, for her work as a former doctoral researcher at the University of Sydney Business School—I'm pretty sure I've got that right—and her commitment to small business. She studied it and she wants it to be better. The difficulty is, she's on a side of parliament that hasn't always regarded small business as something that is as important as it should be, as important as it must be and as important as it can be.

The member for Solomon talked about the help that the government is giving businesses, via the budget, for power costs. It's like cutting someone's arm off then giving them a bandaid and saying, 'This will help.' It won't help. The person is obviously in far more pain than a bandaid can help. They need far more than just a bandaid. These are bandaid measures for businesses.

I wasn't here at the time, member for Moreton, but I certainly would've. Anyway, we'll move on. We know that 98 per cent of businesses in Australia are small to medium enterprises. I was once part of a small family owned business. I started and ran my own small business with a couple of partners, and that business was highly successful. It's tough out there.

We heard, prior to the election, the Prime Minister on nearly a hundred occasions talking about the power bill cuts for families and for small businesses, but they have not materialised. And why haven't those power bill cuts been enacted? Because they were never going to be. This government is about pushing power prices up, with its zealotry, with its philosophy, with its going down the renewables path way too early, way too soon.

I heard the member for Monash talking about the difficulty in hiring people in his Victorian electorate. And it doesn't matter whether it's in his rural and regional centre, it doesn't matter where it is—right across this nation in many shop windows you are seeing signs that say 'work available, apply within'. There are so many job vacancies. Indeed, the Regional Australia Institute identifies 80,000 vacancies in the regions at the moment, vacancies which cannot be filled.

I was talking to Neville Jolliffe and his wife, Jodi, who run independent grocers at both Coolamon and Forest Hill. They can't find people for love nor money. They cannot find people to fill those vacancies. They're happy to pay what they need to. They're a great couple who very much look after their staff. But, for them, it's like everybody else—I could mention the meat-processing plants, I could mention farmers, I could mention any area of endeavour, both unskilled and skilled, within the Riverina: there are job vacancies which simply cannot be filled.

Labor don't have the answers. They don't. They produced a budget where they talked up a $20,000 instant asset write-off. It was unlimited under us. There was no limit on that instant asset write-off under us, and that policy came in at a time when things were difficult. The economy was facing a very bleak future under the global pandemic, under a very—

Will you be quiet and just listen? Maybe you'll learn something, Member for Moreton. You might just learn something, potentially, about the truckie tax which your side of the parliament has put on truckies. Many of them are family owned operations. Not to mention Scott's, refrigerated transport operators, which used to deliver all of the groceries around the country—they have gone to the wall. They have gone to the wall on your watch. They have gone to the wall, and what does that do? That pushes up grocery prices, which are already being hit by everything else that this government has put on them: more red tape, more bureaucracy, more tax.

This is the Labor way. This is what Labor does when it gets into power. It says one thing before it gets into power and does completely another thing after it gets into power. They have two faces; they absolutely do. This is so difficult for our small business people, who are running this country, who are the backbone of the economy, who are taking the risks and who are paying everything that they need to, and then some, to keep their business doors open. Sometimes they go home with less money than their actual workers. Labor wouldn't understand that because most of them haven't ever run a business. Most of them have never taken that risk, most of them have never taken up the opportunity to do so, but they come in here and lecture us.

Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm very happy to speak to this important motion moved by the member for Reid, and I thank her and recognise her commitment to ensuring we have a thriving small business sector. Small business is a powerhouse in Australia's economy, in employment and in broader Australian life. Indeed, at the end of the last financial year, there were over 2.5 million actively trading businesses in Australia, and, of this number, almost 93 per cent had a turnover of less than $2 million.

In my work before entering parliament I saw this firsthand, running economic development and small business support in local government. The breadth of business, from retail, the service sector and professional services to manufacturing, investment and IT—it was always impressive to see individuals and companies finding their opportunities, creating their own futures and making the Australian community and economy the stronger for it.

Last week I welcomed the Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Jenny McAllister, to Boothby to meet with a couple of local businesses that have seized the opportunities that energy transition poses for businesses and households to save on their power bills and cut their emissions at the same time. MAC Trade Services focuses on helping households become more energy efficient, and efficiency at the Tonsley Innovation District assists businesses large and small with their energy transition. These are both great Boothby businesses that have seen an opportunity and gone after it, and that is the great entrepreneurial spirit that drives the small-business sector in Australia.

That's why the Albanese government is delivering for small business. The broader economic agenda is designed to strengthen conditions for small business. Most importantly, we have listened to small businesses about the challenges they are facing and we are putting strategies in place to address those challenges. We heard about the shortage of skilled labour, so we put in place reforms like cheaper child care and an increase in skilled migration. Our implementation of fee-free TAFE places for areas of skills need is helping train the workforce and the small-business owners of the future.

We heard small businesses when they asked for more targeted support for help in the current inflationary environment. In the budget, we announced up to $3 billion in energy bill relief for eligible small businesses and households through the energy bill relief fund, in partnership with state and territory governments. This money will flow to around a million small businesses. In South Australia, the combined rebates for eligible small businesses will total $650 per customer off their energy bills. This builds on the $62.6 million energy efficiency grants program that we committed to in last year's October budget, which adds a 20 per cent tax deduction for energy efficiency upgrades.

We are also aware of the regulatory burden carried by small business. That's why this government is taking steps to reduce Single Touch Payroll red tape. On 1 July 2024, employers will be able to provide Single Touch Payroll engagement authority to their tax agents for extended periods. This will result in the elimination of unnecessary duplication of paperwork for Single Touch Payroll lodgements.

We are also expanding access to Australian tax office audit reviews to reduce tax disputes for small businesses. This can achieve better outcomes for taxpayers by delivering quicker and cheaper resolution of disputes. We're also expanding the number of tax clinics nationwide so more small businesses can receive tax assistance. Treasury will consult with the small-business community in late 2023 to identify further opportunities to reduce regulatory and engagement challenges that small businesses face in their interactions with government.

We also working with Australian small businesses to address new and emerging challenges, particularly in cyberspace. Online services and retail can be amazing opportunities to open up new markets that aren't restricted geographically or by opening-hour constraints. But, as we've seen increasingly over recent years, the online world poses many hazards for both business and their customers. The government will provide $23.4 million over three years, from 2023-24, for a Cyber Wardens program to support small businesses to build in-house capability to protect against cyber threats. More than 15,000 small businesses will be supported to train around 50,000 cyber wardens.

The Albanese Labor government understands and appreciates the contribution of small business to Australia's economy and society. We will work to ensure that they have a strong future.

Debate adjourned.