Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

This is not your bad old Labor-Greens stimulus package of spending taxpayers' money on overpriced school halls and pink batts. This is an initiative which lets small businesses across Australia have more of their own money in order to make judgements about how best to invest in their future success. It is a key part of our long-term economic plan to strengthen growth, to create more jobs and to bring the budget back into surplus as soon as possible. What the government have been doing since we were elected in September 2013 is implementing our plan for stronger growth. That is why we got rid of the job-destroying carbon tax. That is why we got rid of the disastrous mining tax. That is why we have reduced red tape costs for business by more than $2 billion a year so far. That is why we are investing in economic-productivity-enhancing infrastructure. That is why we are working to improve market access for Australian businesses into key markets like China, South Korea and Japan. That is why we are pursuing an important package like this one: to encourage small business across Australia by having more of their own money at their disposal to invest; to encourage them to invest in their future success; to encourage them to become as successful as they possibly can be into the future so they can employ more Australians.