Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

If any road will get you there, as the member for Swan points out. If you do not know where you are going, if you do not know where you will get to, any road will get you there! But I can tell you one road that you will not travel. There is one road that the Australian Labor Party will not travel, and that is being on the side of a small business owner in Australia today. It would not be on the side of the self-employed person. It would not be on the side of the tradie in Western Sydney who is now his own employer and entrepreneur and who has been developing for some time. The Howard government saw the number of self-employed people exceed the number of trade union members for the first time in Australian history. That change had been coming for a long time.

So, Tony's tradies understand that this budget is absolutely about them. They understand that we are about self-employed people, about family businesses and about small and micro businesses, and that we are really delivering policies that will matter and will change their lives. That is why the instant asset write-off program is going to work for small business, because it is an amount that matters. It is not $5,000, it is $20,000! And $20,000 is a reasonable, practical amount for small business to be able to invest in their business and return that cash flow to them. Of course, $5,000 did not recognise the reality of the modern economy.

We heard about the one per cent tax cut from the member for Gorton. This was yet another of the Labor government's tax measures that was never legislated. Once again, it was government by press release, government by fiat and government by overinflated statement. 'This is the most historic reform we will ever see: we are going to give a tax cut!' Never mind that they never actually did it. Never mind that they never legislated it and that they never got to do it.

This government has said that we will cut taxes to small business and that we will change the company tax rate, and we welcome that on this side of the House—recognising that there is a difference between small and large business, recognising that they do need to be able to compete and recognising that we have an opposition in this country who are hell-bent against them and against reform that will improve the conditions for small and family businesses in Australia today. What we need in this place is less of this rhetorical nonsense that we hear in these MPIs and more support for genuine policy measures that will help small business. Those on that side should get off their negative, pessimistic rhetoric about our economy and get on the side of small business and on the side of this government, which is helping it.

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