Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Exactly. The stick—naming and shaming—gets us so far. It is the incentive—the way the coalition is changing the legislation—that actually says to big business: 'Good on you. You're doing the right thing by our small businesses in this country, and you should be recognised.' Another stakeholder said that they're broadly supportive of the proposed amendments and see them as a step in the right direction to better incentivise faster payments to small business and to better meet the revised objects of the act.

We believe that the act can enlighten the designation of a fast small-business payer with just three substantive amendments. The first of the three amendments, which we will seek to include in the new division 5 within part 2 of the act, clause 22J, introduces a 'fast small-business payer' designation to the scheme by defining and setting the threshold test for designation. A fast small-business payer will be a reporting entity or a reporting nominee that, without contrary evidence, has given the regulator payment time reports for two consecutive reporting periods, and both of those reports have a qualifying payment time of 20 days or less. That's a good thing. A qualifying payment time of 20 days or less—I prefer the 'or less'—will have the meaning given by the rules.

The second substantive provision, clause 22K, will establish a framework for how the regulator and entities will interact with the 'fast small-business payer' designation. This will require the regulator to maintain and publish a list of fast small-business payers on the register. This amendment will also permit the regulator to exclude an entity from the list for a period in specific circumstances, and, if an entity is to be excluded from the list, this amendment will require the regulator to give written notice of this reviewable decision.

The third and final substantive provision that we will be moving, to be included in the new division 5 of the act, is measures that seek to add integrity to the designation of a fast small-business payer. We will seek to include a new clause, 22L, which will prohibit false representations that a reporting entity or nominee is a fast small-business payer—quite frankly, shame on you if you are a business out there who would seek to do this—or has a qualifying payment time of 20 days or less by leaving such businesses liable to a civil penalty of 200 penalty units. Quite frankly, you deserve those 200 penalty units.

Whether in government or in opposition, it is the position of the coalition—and I have been the relevant minister in this portfolio—that we feel an obligation to act on behalf of the mum-and-dad small-business owners, as well as the young people with the ideas and the drive to fire the engine room of the Australian economy but whom might not otherwise have their interests echoing down the corridors of our parliaments.

Small businesses are the backbone of the Australian economy, and it is beholden on us, whether we are in opposition or in government, to do everything that we can to ensure that the small businesses of Australia are not just paid on time but paid as quickly as possible. I can assure you, as a former minister for small and family business, that a coalition government led by Peter Dutton will never take Australian small business for granted, and we will also never leave them short-changed. That is why we are moving the amendments that we have worked through in relation to this bill. It is one thing to name and shame a big business for not doing the right thing, but it is another to incentivise them into doing the right thing. The right thing is to ensure that our small businesses in Australia are not just paid but paid as quickly as possible. That is what you'll get under a coalition.