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

because for businesses whose economic cycle is not over a 12-month period, it is an incredibly important measure. As we see innovation, new technology and people working round the world and combining ideas and working in modern forms with intellectual property, it will become increasingly important and not less so.

The other two measures involve accelerated depreciation. We heard the Minister for Small Business today say they are not very sensible measures because a business has to spend the money now and wait till the end of the year to get the tax advantage. I suggest he goes and finds out what depreciation actually is, because standard depreciation is you spend now and you wait several years to get it back in bit-by-bit approach at the end of each year. This actually improves that for small business. It improves the way it was before and it is better than what the government is about to impose on small business again. It allows small business to claim at the end of the financial year an accelerated depreciation up to $6,500 per asset that costs less than $6,500. This is a substantial benefit to small businesses.

I have been in small business myself and I know that one of the things that you think about very seriously when you purchase something is how long the depreciation schedule will last. It is incredibly important for small businesses who have cash flow problems to reduce the period of time between when they spend the money and when they get the tax advantage. That is the purpose of the instant tax write-off.

The other one, of course, is the legislation which provides small businesses a claim of up to $5,000 as an immediate deduction for motor vehicles, new or used, that cost $6,500 or more. I have a string of companies that sell motor vehicles in my electorate. I do not have a Moorooka Magic Mile of motors, but I do have something that looks very much like that.

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