Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business) Share this | Hansard source

To say that 2020 has been a challenging year for small and family business is an understatement. They are the lifeblood, as we know, of our communities. Every single day their hard work and dedication now see over six million Australians go to work, in a job, and they contribute around $418 billion to our national economy. COVID-19, though, has had a profound impact on them. In the wake of COVID-19 many, many small and family businesses have faced unprecedented challenges. Government mandated shutdowns because we needed to protect the health of Australians have meant that many small businesses around Australia faced disrupted supply chains and unimaginable trading restrictions when they were told that, because of the decision that we had to implement to protect the health of Australians, they would need to close their doors when we shut down parts of the Australian economy.

The disruption, of course, was no fault of the 3.5 million small family businesses around Australia. The Morrison government moved decisively and quickly to put in place historic levels of economic support to help those small and family businesses get through COVID-19. As we know, our JobKeeper payment has provided those small and family businesses what was needed to keep their employees on their books. Around 3.6 million Australians maintained that connection with their employer. The cashflow boost has now supported more than 800,000 employing small and medium businesses with $32 billion in terms of a cashflow injection. Of course, our supporting apprentices wage subsidy has now delivered over $741 million and is keeping around 104,500 apprentices in training on the job, where we need them to be.