Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Small Business. Will the minister update the House on how the government's small business tax cuts and instant asset write-off scheme are being welcomed by hardworking small business owners, including those in my electorate of Page? And are there any alternative plans that would threaten the creation of jobs by small business?

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Page for his question. There are 18,173 small businesses in the member's electorate. He is working, as every member in this government is, to back those small businesses each and every day. I spent the day with the member for Page just last Tuesday, when we visited many local small businesses which are getting back on their feet after rising waters in the Wilsons River and Lester River caused devastating flooding in Lismore in the aftermath of Cyclone Debbie. The member for Page is working with his community, especially the Lismore Chamber of Commerce and Industry—the local chamber. They are restarting the heart of small business in Lismore. I commend the local chamber, the local community leaders, the member for Page and his state colleague, Thomas George, who know there is a bright future for small business in Lismore.

Andrew Gordon, who is the vice-chairman of the Lismore chamber, knows this government supports small business each and every day. He said: 'Every business's major consideration is outgoings, and tax is a big part of that, and any concession that allows us to reinvest, to sell more, to purchase new technologies and the like and even to put someone else on.' That is what Andrew says about our tax cuts. He runs a family-owned real estate firm and he knows what it is like to take a risk and to be responsible for the wages of local employees. Andrew also knows what a boost the instant asset write-off extension is—the bill I introduced this morning—and what it does to help small businesses invest in themselves. It is a massive relief to a number of small businesses, especially in the rural community, to help them invest in machinery and the like, which helps with productivity.

The member asked me if there are any alternative plans threatening job creation, and, sadly, I can inform him that there are. There are plans to increase the taxes on more than three million small and medium enterprises, there are plans to put grubby fingers in the till of every small business in the country and there are plans to cut access to the instant asset write-off. But whose plans are these? Surely they cannot be the member for Grayndler's, who told Lateline last year, 'Now, we support a reduction in tax for small business.' Surely it is not from the people's choice, complete with his own beer, who knows our tax cuts pass the pub test.

I hear there are plans to name a wine after the opposition leader, because that is all the member for Maribyrnong ever does—whine. He whines about lower tax rates, he whines about the instant asset write-off, he whines about the definition of small business as having a $10 million turnover. The member for McMahon once called tax cuts 'a Labor thing'. The member for Fenner's academic days were dedicated to calling for tax cuts. The member for Maribyrnong himself once stood at this dispatch box and said he wanted to create jobs. But now they make up the frontbench opposite and they have sold small business out. The message for small business is clear: the Liberals and Nationals back them all the way. (Time expired)