Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Forde for not only his insightful contribution but also his chairmanship of our small business policy committee. He has been a champion of small business right throughout his life. Here is a member of the coalition whose entire life, privately in a professional capacity and publicly, has been an agent of support, encouragement, counsel and assistance for the small business men and women of our country. I commend him for his lifetime of service to this important sector.

Now in public office that work continues. It was the contribution of the member for Forde, the member for Eden-Monaro and the three amigos from Tasmania that helped shape the comprehensive small business policy that we took to the last election. In comparison Labor promised more of the same, and we know that was the last thing that the small business community wanted. This budget actually energises and resources the implementation of a vast number of those election commitments. We have said to the Australian public and to those small business men and women who risk so much and who show great courage to create opportunities for themselves and for others and livelihoods in their communities, your interests are too big and too important to ignore. It was a cry that we heard from the chamber movement, an understandable reflection of the revolving door of previous ministers with the name 'small business' often tacked to a long list of other things. We do not take it that way. My primary focus every day is on small business.

I am pleased that the Prime Minister has understood the importance of the small business community. The small business portfolio is not only included in cabinet and not distracted by a shopping list of other responsibilities but now embraced in the economic policy powerhouse of the Commonwealth—that is, the Treasury. So many of the policy settings that are shaped in Treasury create that entrepreneurial ecosystem that we talked about earlier that helps people decide whether they employ, invest, recruit and expand. Many of those measures as shaped within Treasury. I am pleased to join with Joe Hockey as a cabinet minister in that portfolio.

We understand the importance of the abolition of the carbon tax. There are billions of dollars of impost on our small business men and women. For those who are competing for opportunities here against importers, or who are seeking to grow their markets in overseas countries as exporters, this acts as a reverse tariff. It is lead in the saddlebag. I mentioned in the House our Socceroos last night taking on an extraordinary Dutch team—and your divided loyalties must have been troubling last night—but imagine if our team, in their Nike soccer boots, had five or six kilograms of lead in each of their boots and to keep up with some of those svelte and handsome Dutchman, like yourself, Sir, in the World Cup competition. We know that would be unfair. So we know that that is unfair and sport as it is in life. It is in our economy as well. That is why we want to abolish the carbon tax.

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