Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of this motion and I commend the member for Dobell for bringing to the House's attention the importance of small business. I also join with my colleagues the member for Hindmarsh, the member for Forrest and the member for Bass; many of us have a background in small business, so the coalition genuinely understand the contribution that small businesses make to our economy. They are the driver of our economy. They are the engine room, as even the opposition acknowledged. These people are risk takers, innovators and, most significantly, employers of 43 per cent of the Australian workforce. We should try our best to reward their dedicated work by lowering their compliance load and giving them more time to spend creating wealth for themselves, their employees and, ultimately, Australia.

Already, with just two repeal days, the coalition have saved Australian business $2.1 billion, more than double our original target in dollar savings. The spring and autumn repeal days have seen 11,000 pieces of obsolete legislation struck from the books. The time saved just by having to no longer read those outdated rules and regulations—and indeed many are incredibly irrelevant—is extraordinary. Many of the businesses I speak to complain to me that they do not even know what they do not know, there are so many regulations tying them up in red tape.

As well as these repeal days, our government is looking at other ways to relieve the burden of compliance for small business relating to existing laws. For example, businesses that have no GST payable will no longer be required to lodge a business activity statement. This will save $67 million a year in compliance. Just to get a handle on that, there are 32,000 small businesses that do not pay GST. So there is immediately a positive impact on 32,000 businesses, because they do not have to lodge a BAS. Tax will still be recorded under the pay-as-you-go system but, as this already has to be done, there is no sense in doing it twice for no good reason. If you sign up to the myGov site, you can enter your information once; and, when you have to fill in duplicate forms, the information is automatically fed into it. It saves hours and hours for those mum-and-dad business operators who go home tired at the end of the day and then have to turn around and fill in more forms for government.

Our government has made amendments to the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation to make it easier for small and medium-sized businesses to capitalise on overseas opportunities. Giving our small and medium businesses access to overseas markets is vital for Australia to compete on a regional and global scale. As franchising offers an opportunity to people to enter into business with certain risk minimisation, this government is recognising the importance of this sector by reforming the outdated Franchising Code of Conduct. We are streamlining the code and making the obligations of both franchisor and franchisee easier to understand and more business-friendly. A new Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman is being established to assist in the development of small business-friendly laws and regulations.

Why is the government doing these things? It is because the coalition values and understands business. We understand the person working the longest hours is a small business owner. We understand the person who gets paid last in business is a small business owner. We understand that the person who puts their house on the line to support their business is the owner of that business. Unlike those opposite, who see business as the enemy that must be fought at all costs, the coalition sees business as a beacon of hope.

Business can lift people out of poverty. It creates a sense of achievement and accomplishment. It gives you a sense of pride in doing a job that is worth doing, and you carry others with you, whether it is your family or your employees. Small business lifts this nation to places it might not otherwise achieve. That is why I support the measures to cut red tape for small businesses. Indeed, as a small business operator for 20 years, I know just how that compliance and regulation strangled the time I had to put into the business. Small businesses are the builders of our nation and as such we, as a responsible government, must provide them with a solid foundation on which to build.

This government understands the needs of small businesses in a way those opposite will never do. Business is not a burden on Australia, as those opposite would have you believe, but the reason our country does not have the economic woes of so many others. The coalition government will continue to support small business in the best ways it can, by lessening compliance to free up time and money. I support the motion by the member for Dobell. I also look forward to state and local governments following the leadership of the federal government in lessening the burden for small business and reducing red tape.

See this speech in context