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

It is great to get a question from the member for Corangamite. I was very fortunate to be with the member for Corangamite shortly after the budget, visiting Colac and one of Greater Melbourne's two great peninsulas, the Bellarine Peninsula, and back to Geelong. We did not get to meet all of the 11,500 small businesses in her electorate, but we got to meet plenty of them.

The small business forum at Colac was extremely positive, and there was such an upbeat and positive atmosphere at the packed house at Truffleduck, hosted by the Geelong Business Chamber. Everyone was energised by the budget. Not only did they respond positively; they were really quite taken by the new opportunities—some of the best policy settings from the best small business government that ever has been in this parliament, delivering the best small business package for their interests and their support.

And we are already starting to see some benefits. Andrew Cleary runs a 90-year-young small family business, JB Scott. It is a family agricultural supply business that has provided, 90 years, almost a century of service for that region. And even those businesses that have been around that long are enchanted by the small business package. Mr Cleary said:

As a business owner, I have found the government's initiatives a fantastic move.

I could not have said it better myself.

My June turnover has been bolstered by the incentive.

The incentive that Mr Cleary was talking about was the immediate deductibility of business purchases for small businesses with a turnover of under $2 million for expenditures up to $20,000 time and time again that supports their business growth and their opportunities. But he was also referring to the instant asset write-off for water and fencing investment that the agricultural minister argued so strongly for.

Ms Butler interjecting—

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