Arthur Sinodinos (NSW, Liberal Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Cameron is exactly right, and that is very important. We are talking about those capabilities being built in Australia. We will develop those capabilities further through spin-offs and the like, with benefits across industry. That is how Silicon Valley started. We cannot necessarily hope to replicate Silicon Valley, but we can take an active approach where the government uses its procurement to obtain those high-end jobs here in Australia for Australians.

We continue to cut taxes on jobs and cut taxes across the board for small business, medium business and bigger business, because that is a plan for growth in our economy. As I said earlier, we face a lot of competition in our region. One of the areas in which we face competition is around levels of tax and it is around how productive and innovative we are. We have to be able to attract extra capital and business here and we have to be able to retain people here, by making it more attractive to invest in Australia.

We also recently announced changes to competition policy, particularly around section 46 of the Trade Practices Act, which will hopefully create a more level playing field between big business and small business. It is important that we deal appropriately with the misuse of market power. We have come up with some balanced legislative provisions which I believe strike the right balance in encouraging competition in the economy while recognising the particular depredations that big business can visit on small business through misuse of market power. On top of that, we are continuing, with the states, to promote an agenda of more thoroughgoing competition reform across the board. Competition across the economy is very important. We are seeing the disruption that is occurring through Uber and through Airbnb. Disruption is occurring across the economy. Our role is not, like King Canute, to stop the tide. Our role is to actually encourage that disruption and manage it in the interests of our fellow Australians. Going hand in hand with that, we have to make sure that our education system is fit for purpose, so that those people who feel that they may be displaced out of their jobs because of technological change get the opportunity to be retrained, have the chance of a new job and are not just thrown on the scrap heap.