Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Canavan for the question. We recognise, and have since we came into government, that there are a number of pressures facing small business. We have sought in our responses, particularly to cost-of-living pressures and some of the issues around the energy transition, to provide targeted support to small business.

This issue did come up through estimates and we talked about it at estimates. When you look at it as a proportion of the number of businesses, which is growing over time, what we're seeing at the moment is not at a historical high. But I'm not saying that to dispute the fact that there are businesses under enormous pressure. We had $640 million in the last budget—

I'm just putting some facts on the table. I know you like to argue that this is the worst, but, when you look at the facts, the facts don't support that. As I said in estimates and as I am saying today, when we brought in energy bill rebates for small business, you lot voted against them, despite that being something that small business was telling us was a big issue for them. In this budget alone, we are providing support for small business, with $640 million in practical support, including the instant asset write-off and energy bill relief. This is an area we will continue to focus on to do what we can. There's another big piece of work in cyber and ensuring that small businesses are given the right support to deal with some of the cyber challenges that they are facing. But providing responsible and effective cost-of-living support for Australian small businesses is something that this government has done.