John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

She certainly did. I do not know who was feeding her the questions from the Labor Party's team that goes through the questions, but Senator Brandis was excellent in his answer, saying: 'No cuts there, sorry. You're in the wrong street. You're in the wrong address.' Anyway, we are not here to talk about that. No doubt Senator Gallagher will learn. Next time a question comes to her, hopefully she will not be set up again. How embarrassing were the answers to the questions to Senator Brandis?

Senator Collins mentioned paid parental leave. I have said all my life that life is about families. I will give an example. My daughter, Rebecca, works in the public sector. She had a little girl last September, my gorgeous little granddaughter, Ella. Becky was paid 18 weeks minimum pay from the Paid Parental Leave scheme. She also got 14 weeks full-time pay from her employer, a government department. Here is a problem. We get complaints from the private sector that, when they go to employ people, young women especially are saying, 'No; I want to get a job in the public sector, because you get double paid parental leave.' So it is a negative to the private sector, where they cannot get these employees. I have had businesses ring me, saying, 'We want to put on three young ladies in particular jobs, but they don't want to work for us because they only get the 18 weeks Paid Parental Leave scheme, whereas in the public sector they get a double scheme.' So I think it is time that the system was corrected here to make it fair. The system we have brought forward is fair. It balances up those in the private sector who wish to employ people with those in the public sector who wish to employ people. I do not think my daughter, Rebecca, will be too impressed with it if God blesses them with another baby—but time will tell on that.

We are talking about the budget. There have been a lot of questions, as would be expected, since Tuesday night's great budget announced by the Treasurer, Joe Hockey. It is a great budget for regional and rural Australia and for small business. A lot of businesses have told me how quiet sales, especially in retail, have been. The incentive is now there for businesses, especially those in rural areas, where we are celebrating such great commodity prices. Cattle prices are at record highs after the disgraceful treatment of the beef industry by those opposite, who banned live exports and caused so much damage to the beef industry. To see prices of $2.70 to $2.80 for steers and prices of $3.30 live weight for young weaners is tremendous. Not only are prices high in the beef industry the sheep industry, the lamb industry and the mutton industry are getting prices of $140, $150, $160 even up to $200 for lambs. Combine that with good sorghum prices and the record chickpea prices—and the last week in the wool market—and we are seeing people on the land actually making money, because of the hard work of people such as Andrew Robb on the free trade agreements and Barnaby Joyce with his tremendous work in building more markets overseas.

People who are having a good financial year will face a tax bill. It is always good to pay tax because it means you are making money, especially if you are on the land. Now they have incentive to go and spend some of that money. It might be for a new generator, a new computer for the house, perhaps a new chainsaw or an ATV, as we call them, four-wheel motorbikes—they are a dangerous item, too, I might add; there are too many accidents and deaths caused by them each year. These people can take it straight off their tax. That means those businesses in country communities who are selling those products will have a surge in their business. There are two million small businesses in Australia. They are the country's biggest employer, with almost five million people. If we can get them to employ another million people over the next five, six or seven years, that will be great for employment and for growth in those small businesses.

During question time, those opposite criticised our budget. It showed that they do not understand small business, that they do not understand rural Australia and that they do not realise that every big business actually started as a small business. That is why I think we had done such a really good job with this year's budget.