Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, the Service Economy and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

How remarkable that the Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy commences his ministerial statement outlining what the Rudd government believes when it comes to small business because, as we know, what the Rudd government does and what the Rudd government claims to believe in are two remarkably different things. The minister said that inflation is the No. 1 enemy of small business. Obviously, it has been a while since the minister got out there and talked to small businesses on the ground, because small businesses are saying that the Rudd Labor government is enemy No. 1. Why is that the case? Because in the first Rudd Labor budget nearly $1 billion of support for small business was axed. Why is the Rudd Labor government enemy No. 1? Because Rudd Labor also whacked Australia’s small businesses with hundreds of millions of dollars of new taxes. Why is Rudd Labor enemy No. 1 for small business? Because Labor’s Treasurer cannot handle the economic challenges of the day. Finally, why does small business view Rudd Labor as enemy No. 1? Because Rudd Labor is promising the return of unfair dismissal laws, ‘go away money’ and a three-strikes warning system.

Contrast Labor’s first six months to the achievements of the coalition when it was in government. Over the 11 years we were in government, the coalition put the government back into the black. We eliminated $96 billion of Labor government debt, started saving for the future and restored Australia’s AAA credit rating. The minister stated the Rudd government’s first budget was focused on reining in government spending. As is typically the case with Labor, it is important to look at what they do rather than believe what they say. Spending has gone up by $3 billion in this current financial year and by $14.9 billion over the forward estimates. I do not know of any small businesses that would consider that outcome a reining in of government spending. Labor say they will rein in spending, but when you look at what they do you see that it is the opposite. The Rudd Labor government have increased spending. It is an old-fashioned Labor budget.

Similarly, I doubt small businesses care much for the Treasurer’s resolve to talk down the Australian economy. If Labor truly believed inflation was the No. 1 enemy of small business, would the Treasurer really be spruiking to the world that inflation in Australia was out of control? Small business people across the country looked on in horror when, the day before the Reserve Bank met, the Treasurer held that extraordinary press conference—and we recall it—where he said:

The inflation genie is out of the bottle.

In contrast, the strong economy the coalition fostered under the stewardship of the former Treasurer and member for Higgins provided Australia’s small businesses with actual confidence to invest in their businesses, to take risk and to deliver more jobs to working Australians—of whom there will be fewer under the Rudd Labor government, according to their first budget—who deserve better. The Labor government are certainly on target to meet their goal of slashing 134,000 jobs for ordinary working Australians; indeed, they may even exceed it. ABS figures released earlier this month show there were 19,700 fewer Australians in employment in May this year than in April this year.

But a strong economy was not the coalition’s only achievement. The coalition reduced the company tax rate from 36 per cent to 30 per cent. The coalition reduced personal income tax rates in its last five federal budgets, leading to consumers having more money in their pockets to spend in Australia’s small businesses. All of these tax reform initiatives put more money in the pockets of Australia’s small business men and women. I am pleased to see that the minister has become a latter-day convert on tax reform, but I doubt small businesses are giving the government much credit for copying the coalition’s tax cuts. Australia’s small businesses were paying attention when Labor opposed virtually every one of the key economic reforms that the coalition put forward over its time in office—coalition reforms that resulted in Australia being a much stronger, more prosperous nation in 2007 than it was when we came to office after 13 years of Labor mismanagement.

The minister neglected to mention in his speech that the Rudd Labor government actually increased taxes for some small business owners by, for example, adjusting the entrepreneurs tax offset which, under the coalition government, provided an offset of up to 25 per cent to help small businesses with an annual turnover of less than $75,000. The small business community was completely gutted after the Rudd Labor government’s first budget axed nearly $1 billion of small business assistance programs. This included $700 million for the Commercial Ready program, which supported commercialisation and innovation in Australia’s small businesses. So much for Labor’s belief in Australia’s small business sector.

On industrial relations, the coalition encouraged cooperation in the workplace, which resulted in nine of the 10 most harmonious years, in terms of working days lost per 1,000 employees, in Australia’s entire history. Labor did not waste any time turning this coalition achievement on its head. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released earlier this month reveal that 42,800 working days were lost due to industrial disputation in the March quarter of 2008. Yet only 49,700 working days were lost through industrial disputation for the whole of 2007. So in the first quarter of the Rudd Labor government nearly as many working days were lost due to industrial disputes as in an entire year under the previous coalition government.

The coalition was finally able to give small business greater confidence to employ people following the removal of Labor’s job-destroying unfair dismissal laws. The coalition attempted to pass these laws 42 times, and Labor rejected them every single time. These laws were only able to be passed when the coalition gained a majority in both houses.

The minister has a very special history when it comes to unfair dismissal laws. As Labor’s former shadow minister for workplace relations, the minister made it a personal vendetta to oppose the coalition’s unfair dismissal laws. At a doorstop interview on 12 August 2003, the now minister, speaking about the then Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and the fair dismissal bill, said:

Labor will not cop his thuggery. I said when I got this portfolio that whenever Tony Abbott brings legislation into the Parliament … we will oppose it. And we opposed it last night, successfully.

So much for Labor’s belief in mandates. Labor believe in mandates when it suits them. But when the coalition had a mandate, which was confirmed by the Australian people on three separate occasions, Labor blocked it, Labor blocked it and Labor blocked it. Little wonder, then, that Labor’s Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy has proposed the reintroduction of Paul Keating’s job-destroying unfair dismissal laws, which will cripple Australia’s small business sector. But this time they come with added red tape—Labor’s mooted but as yet undetailed ‘fair dismissal code’. It is no wonder the minister is already being referred to as the ‘minister for smaller business’. I agree with the minister that the Council of Small Business of Australia will never relent in representing the interests of small business. Indeed, the minister would be well served to revisit the comments made by the President of COSBOA, Bob Stanton, in June 2006:

The continual resolve of the Labor Party to block exemptions for small business on unfair dismissal ... only indicates to us that their position is politically motivated with no regard for small business.

The many small businesses I have been meeting with around the country tell me that the lack of regard for small business is alive and well in the Rudd Labor government. I would also draw the minister’s attention to the comments made by the CEO of COSBOA, Tony Steven, in April of last year:

We want to maintain the unfair dismissal exemption and, if an extended probationary period is the Labor Party’s answer, that is not good enough.

The minister says the Rudd Labor government will roll out a high-speed national broadband network that will be of assistance to the small business sector. But at what cost? In another example of where the Rudd Labor government says it will do one thing and then does another, there are legitimate fears that Australia’s small businesses across the country will be forced to pay substantially higher prices for broadband services. Adding to the price fears are the wild variations in costings that we see surrounding Labor’s proposal. First, Labor said the network would cost $8 billion, and then they said it could be $10 billion. Yet just six months away from Labor’s promised construction start date, key industry figures are lining up against the government. Telstra says the government’s plan will cost $15 billion and Pipe Networks say it could be $20 billion or more. Does the minister really believe that small businesses want $4.7 billion of their taxes squandered on a badly costed proposal to provide subsidies where the private sector is already investing or prepared to invest in commercially viable infrastructure?

The coalition also introduced the Building Entrepreneurship in Small Business program. This program provided training and mentoring in business skills through 65 small business field officers who helped small business access information and get advice, along with funding for providers of skills development, mentoring and succession planning. It was the same skill set, the same advice that the minister just spoke about that was available to the business enterprise centres. The entire program was funded at an annual cost of some $10.3 million. Yet, in some bizarre twist in their new-found alleged economic conservatism, Labor saw fit to scrap this program and replace it with 36 business enterprise centres at an annual cost of $10.5 million. So we have the coalition’s former program of 65 small business assistance contacts at $10.3 million or Labor’s new program of only 36 small business assistance contacts at $10.5 million. The minister said that these contacts will be in suburban, rural and regional Australia. Yet, by reducing the contact points from 65 to 36, the Rudd Labor government has abandoned small businesses in rural and regional Australia. Take, for example, small businesses in Cairns, which were previously serviced by a small business field officer. They are now faced with a round trip of more than nine hours to their closest business enterprise centre. The locations of the BECs the government has chosen to fund are another example of the Rudd Labor government saying one thing and doing another. It is little wonder small business confidence in the Rudd Labor government’s policies has plummeted.

In February, the first Sensis business index after the election of the Rudd government showed the biggest fall recorded in the history of the index in terms of the attitude to federal government policies. And Labor backed it up again in the second index, with the May index showing that the confidence of small business in the policies of the Rudd Labor government has now collapsed by a massive 53 percentage points. Did the index reveal that small businesses thought inflation was the No. 1 enemy of small business? No, it did not. According to the Sensis business index, Australia’s small businesses have lost confidence in the Rudd Labor government because they believe the Rudd Labor government does not offer incentives to small business. They believe the policies of the Rudd Labor government will work against their business interests, and they believe the policies of the Rudd Labor government only favour larger businesses and firms in certain industries. The minister says the role of the Rudd Labor government is to remove impediments to small business success. Well, I am not sure if the Prime Minister would agree with the minister by calling an early election, because Australia’s small businesses say the Rudd Labor government is the impediment to small business success in this country. (Time expired)

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