Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Jobs and Innovation) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Macdonald for the question. On this side of the chamber, we know that small and medium businesses are the engine room of the Australian economy. What do they do for us? They create jobs, they grow our economy and they provide valuable goods and services to the Australian community. In Australia, we have approximately 3.3 million small and medium businesses. Those small and medium businesses employ approximately 6.8 million Australians. So what do they do? They give Australians jobs. On this side of the chamber, we know that you need to do everything that you can to ensure that small and medium businesses in Australia have the opportunity to prosper and grow and ultimately to create more jobs for Australians.

But how do you do this? On this side of the chamber, we know you need to put in place the right policy framework, and that is exactly what we have been doing. We know that, by reducing company taxes, businesses are actually investing back into their businesses, into their premises, expanding their facilities and, ultimately, more jobs for Australians. It's no accident that employment is at a record high in Australia. It is no accident that we have seen more than one million jobs created since the coalition was elected to government in 2013. This is because we've put in place the right policy framework.

I was recently in Queensland in the seat of Petrie and I visited Michael Kennedy from Kennedy's Timbers. He has a new machine there and, colleagues, he calls it 'the tax-cut machine' because he was able to invest the money that he received by way of the government's tax cuts back into his business and upgrade his machinery. That's what we on this side of the chamber are all about.