Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

The government opposes the amendments. The history of this is that, as I understand it, when we originally talked about the legislation and announced our intention, the number was 20 for the definition of a business that might be affected and then the Prime Minister announced in January of this year that that figure would be raised to 100. While most agriculturally dependent small businesses in rural and regional Australia only have up to 20 employees, there are a number of cases where the drought is severely impacting on larger small businesses that rely on farm activities.

The main group of business operators that will benefit from the change of criteria are those that have businesses in multiple locations. For example, there are a number of farm machinery retailers that have sites in three or four locations in a region, which means they inevitably have more than 20 employees. Due to the widespread nature of this current drought, all of the areas that the multi-location businesses are in are experiencing financial difficulties. The change in criteria recognises the important role these companies play as well in regional and rural Australia. By committing to help these small business operators, the Australian government is making sure the services for farmers remain as well as securing employment opportunities in the towns that support the agriculture sector and strengthening the communities more broadly.

The impact of Senator O’Brien’s amendments is to change the term ‘small business’ to ‘eligible business’. Then, as I understand it, the eligibility would simply be based on the numbers that are in the clause as opposed to the other criteria. It seems that you would then only have to meet the criterion of the numbers in order to be eligible. This is not the case as there are a number of qualifying criteria as well as an asset and income test. That being as it may, the real test is: are these rural and regional communities doing it tough because of drought? Unequivocally and absolutely yes. We as a government recognise it. When we initially announced this in November last year, we thought an appropriate scheme would be to limit it to about 20 employees. Over the Christmas period we got feedback that that would, unfortunately, provide restrictions in certain areas and that is why the Prime Minister announced in January the change to 100.

At the end of the day, the question the opposition and indeed the Senate need to ask is: do we really want to limit and stop businesses from benefiting on the basis of the artificial number of 20 or are we acknowledging that they are doing it tough? There are some small businesses that are multi-located in various areas within drought affected regions that are clearly over the 20 figure and we do not want to disadvantage them. From the government’s point of view, we want them to get the benefits of the assistance that we have on offer, keeping in mind that the assistance that we provide will have the added benefit of the flow-on effect within these devastated communities. I urge all honourable senators to reject Labor’s amendments.