Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Primary Industries, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move opposition amendments (1) to (3) on sheet 5221 together:

(1)    Schedule 1, item 4, page 4 (line 6), omit “small business”, substitute “eligible business”.

(2)    Schedule 1, page 3 (line 2) to page 15 (line 28), omit “small business”, (wherever occurring), substitute “eligible business”.

(3)    Schedule 1, page 3 (line 2) to page 15 (line 28), omit “small businesses”, (wherever occurring), substitute “eligible businesses”.

The opposition seeks to amend this legislation not to alter its impact but to more accurately reflect the sort of description of the businesses which are intended to be assisted. The Australian Bureau of Statistics definition of a small business is one comprising one to 19 employees. Certainly, in rural and regional Australia, it is our view that there are very few businesses approaching 100 employees that would be considered, by any stretch of the imagination in the regions and the economies in which they trade, to be small businesses. The definition proposed—that is, the extension from 20 to up to 100 employees—is not something with which we will quibble. For example, it could be a business with 21 or 25 employees which is in difficulty.

We are not aware of businesses trading in rural and regional Australia with anything approaching 100 employees that would be seeking assistance under this legislation. We believe in accurately reflecting the impact and not discouraging businesses from applying because they would have to almost survive the laugh test in their regions in saying they were small businesses when, in fact, they were the largest in the town. To reflect this, the amendments change the term in the definition from ‘small business’ to ‘eligible business’.

We are not quibbling with the size of businesses being eligible. We suggest that it is in the interests of accuracy to reflect the types of businesses concerned. Also, it does not put those businesses that are never going to be considered small business in these economies in the invidious position of having to claim themselves to be small business to gain assistance. These amendments ought to be supported and we think that it would be a simple proposition for the government to support them. If these amendments are defeated, we will support the legislation but we think it will place some businesses in regional economies in an invidious position, claiming under the legislation to be something that no-one in their community believes they are.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government opposes the amendments. The history of this is that, as I understand it, when we originally talked about the legislation and announced our intention, the number was 20 for the definition of a business that might be affected and then the Prime Minister announced in January of this year that that figure would be raised to 100. While most agriculturally dependent small businesses in rural and regional Australia only have up to 20 employees, there are a number of cases where the drought is severely impacting on larger small businesses that rely on farm activities.

The main group of business operators that will benefit from the change of criteria are those that have businesses in multiple locations. For example, there are a number of farm machinery retailers that have sites in three or four locations in a region, which means they inevitably have more than 20 employees. Due to the widespread nature of this current drought, all of the areas that the multi-location businesses are in are experiencing financial difficulties. The change in criteria recognises the important role these companies play as well in regional and rural Australia. By committing to help these small business operators, the Australian government is making sure the services for farmers remain as well as securing employment opportunities in the towns that support the agriculture sector and strengthening the communities more broadly.

The impact of Senator O’Brien’s amendments is to change the term ‘small business’ to ‘eligible business’. Then, as I understand it, the eligibility would simply be based on the numbers that are in the clause as opposed to the other criteria. It seems that you would then only have to meet the criterion of the numbers in order to be eligible. This is not the case as there are a number of qualifying criteria as well as an asset and income test. That being as it may, the real test is: are these rural and regional communities doing it tough because of drought? Unequivocally and absolutely yes. We as a government recognise it. When we initially announced this in November last year, we thought an appropriate scheme would be to limit it to about 20 employees. Over the Christmas period we got feedback that that would, unfortunately, provide restrictions in certain areas and that is why the Prime Minister announced in January the change to 100.

At the end of the day, the question the opposition and indeed the Senate need to ask is: do we really want to limit and stop businesses from benefiting on the basis of the artificial number of 20 or are we acknowledging that they are doing it tough? There are some small businesses that are multi-located in various areas within drought affected regions that are clearly over the 20 figure and we do not want to disadvantage them. From the government’s point of view, we want them to get the benefits of the assistance that we have on offer, keeping in mind that the assistance that we provide will have the added benefit of the flow-on effect within these devastated communities. I urge all honourable senators to reject Labor’s amendments.

Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Primary Industries, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I must admit that I do not understand how the advisers could interpret those amendments in the way that they have, because all we do is replace the words ‘small business’ with the words ‘eligible business’ wherever they occur. We do not take anything out and we do not qualify the matter. In the definition we change ‘small business’ to ‘eligible business’ and that is all. I do not understand how it could have the purported effect the minister suggests.

We have not in any sense suggested that we would not support the provisions. We thought that in some areas it would, frankly, render a significantly sized applicant subject to perhaps negative comment or even derision when it claimed to be a ‘small business’. But we are not going to stand in the way of assistance for those businesses. That is what I tried to make clear when I put the initial proposition. We think this is good policy. We do not want to exclude businesses because they have 21, 25 or 33 employees. We suspect that there will not be too many with anything like 99 employees, but were they in circumstances to apply we think that if it were to be known in their communities that they were applying as a ‘small business’ the community would be amused. They would not consider them to be a small business.

That is all we were trying to do. We will be voting for these amendments, but if they fail we will be voting for the legislation because we do not want to stand in the way of this provision. But we do think it is not too much to ask the government to accept those amendments. They would not have anything like the effect the minister suggests they would have.

Question negatived.

Bill agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment; report adopted.