Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

As usual, I know that government ministers on the other side do not understand this. They are uncomfortable with the words: growth, science, maths, the environment, renewable energy, innovation, entrepreneurship—they start to shudder when they hear these words. The Liberal Party is the party of small thinking. Small 'l' liberal really means small thinking—1950s, yes, but the world has moved on. Jobs of the future, growth, entrepreneurship is what we need for the future. We need governments that reflect this.

We also need a government that understands that R&D actually helps our economy—it is not a cost but an investment. We need a government that understands that the jobs of the future are not about shutting down wind energy, but are about promoting renewable energy—it is about sustainability. It is not about destroying through one comment the renewable sector in wind power generation, because the Prime Minister does not like the 'awful look' of them or that perhaps that they are noisy. Come and speak about noise to some of my constituents who live next to major roads and highways. They will tell you a thing or two about noise. When it comes to cheaper electricity and making sure in the future that Australia is just keeping up, then let's talk about those things.

This government is not comfortable with these words: mathematics, science, engineering, entrepreneurship, start-ups, crowd-sourced equity funding—they think these are terrible thoughts and concepts from another era. They are a government from another era, that is for sure. But Labor does recognise there is much more that governments can do. You can do that through support. You can support small business and encourage those that want to go out and have a go and grow their businesses. That is exactly what Labor did in government—we did not just talk about it, we did it through substantial tax assistance and really good measures. In fact, as soon as a Liberal government got into power they completely wiped out these measures. Small business is very unhappy. Small-business representatives, medium-business representatives and large-business representatives are unhappy about it. The government now, after it has seen the damage it has done, is trying to repair some of this by reintroducing some of those measures. Which is, of course, why we are supporting them. In effect, they are just a reintroduction of Labor's policies. Many small businesses are desperately trying right now to find, for example, access to finance, because they are constrained by difficulties in the methods that exist in getting traditional funds through banks and through other methods—it is either too expensive, too difficult, they may not have the balance sheet strong enough or they might not be capitalised enough. Again, these are probably all foreign concepts to the Liberals. The Liberals, when it comes to small business, have only two tired old lines—that small business people mortgage their home. We know people do that, but it is not the only way. Some do that. Some cannot get money because they do not have the capital or equity, so they look for other sources of financing. If a government is smart enough, it will put in place schemes to assist them. That is what Labor are proposing to do.

Under Labor's plan, we will work with the banking and financial services industry to develop 'Start-Up Finance', a partial guarantee scheme which will support the development of Australian microbusinesses by improving their access to finance. Currently Australian microbusinesses either struggle to get a loan or may borrow via residential mortgages. We all know that. There is no great science or analysis in that. They do that in the absence of cheaper more appropriate financing alternatives.

There are some well-established credit guarantee schemes supporting start-ups, micros and small businesses in the UK, the US, Canada, France and Germany as well 46 other countries around the world that we could compare ourselves to. This is where we should be turning our eyes and looking for some innovation ourselves. Australia is one of the only countries in the developed world without such a scheme and, as a result, we risk being left behind. I would say that we are being left behind.

Labor proposes to create a new $500 million smart investment fund which will back-in great Australian ideas and help convert those ideas into businesses, jobs of the future and a stronger economy and, at the same time, support revenues to government which, in turn, will support ordinary Australians. Our smart investment fund will partner with venture capitalists and licensed fund managers to co-invest in early-stage and high-potential companies, providing a Commonwealth investment of up to 50 per cent of the start-up capital needed to help Australian companies commercialise innovations.

This is part of Labor's plan for the jobs of the future. That has to be the basis from which we start, if we are going to be serious about long-term economic growth. Economic growth is not that great at the moment. We have to realise that the numbers are not just going to magically go up unless government takes a proactive approach to growing the economy and making sure that we transition our economy from old-style manufacturing and resources to the high-skilled jobs of the future. That transition will take a long period of time. We need a government that supports that. You do it through skills and training and a whole range of other methods and investing in the right places.

Another important role for government is in assisting small business to provide certainty on the provision of the relevant skills and training opportunities. That is something Labor put in place and invested money in, including in apprenticeships, traineeships and a whole range of other incentives around how that works. Again, sadly, when the Liberals got elected the first thing they did was cut all that. They just wiped it off the table. They say it is a saving. I say it has had a detrimental, negative impact on small business and the economy.

Labor's policy is to provide guaranteed funding to TAFE so that businesses can get the skills they need. That is what businesses say they want. That is because it works. That is the reality. Our TAFE system is strong. It is proven. Infrastructure is in place. We have the right people as part of our TAFE network. But we have to fund that. It is like anything in life. If you starve something, eventually it does wither. We have known for a long, long time that the Liberals just hate the TAFE system. They hate it. They just do not like it. It is as simple as that. It is ideological hatred. They hate it, and so through consecutive liberal governments they starve, poke at, demonise and do everything they can to diminish the TAFE system in Australia with this crazy view that, somehow, the private sector will do a better job. Why can't we do it in tandem? Why can't we have the private sector doing its bit and doing a great job and the TAFE system doing a great job and doing its bit as well? Of course, when you only have one eye, you cannot see both sides of the argument.

Over a million Australians every year participate in skills training. Labor are very proudly the party of skills, training and apprenticeships. We are committed to providing a quality TAFE system. We will do that. I also want to take this opportunity to remind the government that it was Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey who cut more than $2 billion from skills and training programs just over a year ago in their first budget. That is what they decided to do in an economy that needs to grow and needs skills. If I were to ask ordinary Australians, 'If you were going to grow the economy and develop skills and training, what would you do?', I do not think they would come back and say, 'We would cut $2 billion from the programs that help provide skills and training.'

This is a really confused Liberal government. They are distracted by a whole range of issues—budget emergencies and crises. They have so many crises internally. Tony Abbott needs to call the fire-engines that he used to talk about for the deficit into the party room. They have fires going in every corner of their party room on a whole range of issues. That is fair enough. Parties have that happen from time to time. There is chaos inside the Liberal Party. That is okay. That is part of their internal party processes. But the tragedy of all that is that it is distracting the government from doing their job and from doing a good job in trying to get people off the dole queue and into a really good job.

If you are the Treasurer of the country, Joe Hockey, your answer if someone cannot afford a home in Sydney is: 'Get a better job.' That is not a fine principle. If you are poor, stop being poor; if you are sick, stop being sick—that is the message from the Liberal Party. That would be fine if there were the jobs there to be had, but unfortunately under the Liberal Party the unemployment rate is now at 6.3 per cent. This is worse than during the global financial crisis. Where is the crisis today? The crisis is just the Liberal Party and the Liberal government.

As a contrast, Labor has a proud record on providing tax assistance for small business and helping the economy. It was a Labor government that introduced the instant asset write-off and the tax loss carry-back for companies which worked really well to assist our economy and small business people. They helped people to keep their jobs and to keep their businesses. That is why we did so well during the global financial crisis compared to so many other economies, be they in North America, Europe or other places.

Let me remind you that it was the Liberals who cut these tax assistance measures only to realise how effective they were and are now trying to restore them a couple of years later. Labor introduced these tax assistance measures for small business because we understood the stimulatory boost that they would provide to the sector and the Australian economy more broadly. This was welcomed by small business. It was a disaster when the Liberals took them away.

Labor's tax assistance, when combined, was worth more than $5 billion over the forward estimates. This is what Labor believes in and stands for. We have a strong view about assisting ordinary working Australians and helping businesses—small, medium and large. We have a long-term plan for small business to drive innovation and boost economic growth in a sustainable way. We recognise the work that is done by all people involved in those enterprises to help our economy stay strong and make sure that people actually have a job among the jobs of the future.

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