Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Small Business. Can the minister confirm that there is no provision for the ongoing instant asset write-off of $20,000 in the budget and that the instant asset write-off will now fall to $1,000 next year?

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member opposite for her question. What I would say to the member opposite is that, as the Treasurer has suggested, the instant asset write-off for this financial year is $20,000, and, of course, those opposite have been playing around with this, as they did last year with the instant asset write-off. Last financial year, it only passed parliament in the last week of the financial year. Of course, the legislation has been in the parliament now for eight months, and those opposite continue to say that they're not going to support it in its current form. But it is, of course, just one part of the assistance that we are provide are for small business. We know that they didn't support the energy bill relief—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister will pause. The deputy leader is going to raise her point of order.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's on relevance. The question was about whether there was provision in the budget for a $20,000 ongoing instant asset write-off.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The minister was asked a detailed—order! The Treasurer is not helping. The deputy leader did ask the minister. She has been relevant. She is straying into other territory, so I'll ask her to return to the question she was asked about. She wasn't asked about alternative policies or anything else that the opposition had or had not supported. So I'll just ask her to be relevant to the question.

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the member opposite would know, it's around $290 million of support for small businesses, and, of course, it was in the budget and is part of our budget statement—over $2 billion that we have provided to small businesses over our term.