Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Good on you, member for Dobell! Good on you for bringing this resolution! Not only do I commend this resolution, because it gives effect to what Labor did, but I am going to make a recommendation for the very first order of business for this small business ombudsman: to investigate the deceptive and misleading conduct of the Abbott government.

You say all the time you are in favour of small business, but reality never matches the words. It is like watching an Oprah show. The coalition are ringing their handkerchiefs telling us how much they love small business. They are the best people. We are their best friends. They do fantastic things for the economy, and we are going to be there to help them. And what is the first thing they do when they get into office? They stop a whole range of measures—billions taken away from small business: instant asset tax write-off; accelerated deduction for motor vehicles, which gave small businesses a boost in their cash flow; and also the further cash flow measure we brought in that allows for carry back of tax losses. All these things are affected by those opposite—the ones who are telling us in their words how much they are a friend of small business, but in their deeds are hurting every small business in the country.

And how many did they rip off? In taking the axe to assistance for small business from the abolition of the asset write-off, that is $3 billion. Billions wiped off. But that is not the worst. That is not the worst of what they did. The worst is that they made it retrospective. They made it retrospective. If these people ever confronted us doing that when we were in government, we would have an uproar. They have done something that retrospectively takes and disables the ability of small business to claim those measures. They have not only ripped it out of the future, they have ripped it out now, when businesses have counted on that benefit. Gone—by them. Why does your small business ombudsman not investigate that deceptive and misleading conduct? There are a whole stack of things you are doing now that you never said you were going to do before the election. You never had the guts to tell these people—the people to whom you say, 'We are your best friend'—that you are going to rip these billions off them retrospectively.

I have 9,000 small businesses in my electorate and I am proud to represent them. They are all having a crack. A lot of them hardly employ people at all. There they are working the long hours and we are here telling them what they will have the ability to write off—for example, a small cafe's refrigerator display that busts, as I have seen and I have heard from businesses in my area. Instead of them having to rely on their premiums or taking a hit on their cash flow, we were able to help them. We provided them with that assistance; you took it away from them. All you give us are your Oprah moments, the moments when you put hands on hearts and tell us you are such great friends of small business—but you are not there backing them up at all.

Then you talk about the mining tax. We had the member for Forrest in here before talking about all the small businesses affected. Tell me: what happens, when you literally chase General Motors out of the country? The auto components industry, made up of all these small businesses, is gone, wiped out—50,000 employees, all these small businesses. I have never, ever heard a Liberal or National party member come in here and talk about what impact that decision had on small businesses—all gone, all affected by your decisions. In the other instance, for example, in the tech sector, you went around the country saying for ages that you would fix the employee share ownership program. We started the process of pushing the review to Treasury. You then went around the country claiming that you would fix it. You have been in office for more than a year, making all these suggestions about how you would fix it, and you have finally got to it now?

What about crowdfunding? Again, we started the process—

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