Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

It's a very interesting concept that has been raised by One Nation here. Minister, if you'd been here for the endless debates we had around the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement and other international trade agreements, you'd know you'd be in breach of those agreements if you did that and no doubt would attract a state-to-state dispute or an investor-state dispute if you were to give any preferential treatment in the financing of Australian businesses over foreign interests—which, by the way, I voted against because I didn't support this raft of trade deals that actually tied our hands behind our backs in being able to look after Australian businesses. I'd perhaps ask that you go away and consider that, in terms of your response to Senator Hanson.

Minister, I raised in my speech in the second reading debate that there's no apparent market failure here. You talked about the Reserve Bank. My understanding, from having read that Reserve Bank report, is that they're talking about an overarching failure of finance to go to small business versus other sectors in the economy like real estate. Minister, did the Reserve Bank explicitly recommend a business growth fund to solve a market failure?