Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

When you use the words 'loss carry back' you assume it is about a business that has a bad year and makes a loss and is able to carry that back. That is part of it, but it is also a measure that assists businesses whose economic cycle is not actually a 12-month cycle. It is one of my great interests that the whole field of accounting was actually created by a monk in the agrarian age, when the annual cycle was the norm. For a lot of businesses it is the norm, but for other businesses that work in highly creative fields that have long development lead times because they are developing new products or film or intellectual property the economic cycle is not one year and the losses in one year can be substantial and the income can flow in a very lumpy way in one year or another.

The parliamentary secretary opposite said it was a Liberal Party policy. Well, you are about to abolish it, Parliamentary Secretary. If you think it is so great, perhaps you should consider keeping it—

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