Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

That's right, Senator Scarr: $175. I'm not going to go through again where that $175 came from. Senator Cash has embarrassed the government enough. The fact that they referenced a spiritual healer for the cost imposed on small business should be a deep shame—a deep shame to the minister and a deep shame to every member of the government.

Then what did they do? They had the department come out and issue a statement saying, 'Oh, no, it's just the reference that was wrong,' even though it said $175 in the regulatory impact statement and $175 on the website of the spiritual healer—exactly the same number. They said, 'Oh, no, actually it was just a bad reference; we looked at the AFR as well.' Well, I'd like the government to show me where exactly in the AFR it says that the cost of IR advice for small business is 175 bucks an hour, because I don't reckon they'd be able to find it. I don't think they'd be able to point to it. I don't think any of those other 'sources' they cited would have $175, because it's a non-credible number.

But did the government own the mistake? Did they just say, 'Yes, okay, sorry; that was a silly number and we shouldn't have used it, and the cost is way higher for small business'? No, they didn't. Instead, they got the department to try to justify that number by saying it came from a whole lot of different sources all over the place, when in actual fact they know it came from a spiritual healer. That should be a deep embarrassment to the government, because it shows the absolute contempt in which the government holds small and medium-sized business.

In the few minutes remaining to me, I just want to address a couple of the changes that have been made to the bill in the deal with Senator Pocock. In particular, I wish to talk about the change from 15 to 20 employees being the threshold for a small business. It sounds like a good change on the surface, until you delve into the numbers a little bit more deeply. When you delve into the breakdown of small business in Australia, you'll realise that the vast majority of businesses classified as small businesses have no employees. They're effectively sole traders with no full-time or part-time employees that would meet the standards of being considered to be an employment size of one to four. Some 59 per cent are non-employing business. Some 30 per cent have one to four employees. Some nine per cent have five to 19 employees. I can't find the exact breakdown for that 15-to-20 category, but the best guess you could make from those sorts of numbers is that it increased the percentage of small business protected under the legislation by about four or five per cent. Only four or five per cent more businesses will be protected by moving that threshold from 15 to 20 people. So, unfortunately, it just doesn't provide the protection that small business particularly deserves.

I hate to admit my age, but I can remember the 1970s and early 1980s and the industrial disputation in Western Australia.