Trevor Evans (Brisbane, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to speak briefly in this debate on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Lower Taxes for Small and Medium Businesses) Bill 2018 and add my support for lower taxes for small and medium businesses. Small business plays an incredibly important and central role in the life of so many of us around Australia. Having grown up in a small-business family, it was one of the formative experiences that drives my work and my priorities in this place, as it did in my previous work for the National Retail Association, representing the interests of so many small and family businesses in the retail and hospitality sectors. So small business is a very big part of why I'm here. Small business is also a very big part of why the Liberal Party was founded. Coalition governments have the track record and bring the experiences of hardworking small business owners, tradies, contractors and professionals into this parliament and to discussions around the cabinet table. In coalition governments, we understand both the opportunities and the challenges faced by small businesses, many of us having lived those challenges and opportunities.

Small business is collectively the biggest provider of jobs and opportunities right across Australia but also at a micro level in each of the suburbs and the streets in all of our electorates. Last year, small and medium businesses contributed most to all of those new jobs being created faster than jobs have ever been created before in Australia's history: a record of about 1,100 jobs a day on average. That's what happens when those small and medium businesses have the confidence to invest and to grow. I've said in this place before that if we could somehow encourage every small business out there to employ one additional worker our unemployment rate would be effectively zero.

All the jobs, all the opportunities and the prosperity that small businesses create only come about through the commitment, the risks, the sacrifices and the hard work taken by over three million small business owners and operators around Australia. As the member for Petrie just said, there are over 30,000 small and medium businesses in my electorate of Brisbane, and last week we were very lucky to have the Minister for Small and Family Business, Skills and Vocational Education visit Brisbane. We met with local businesses in the Paddington shopping strips. Those businesses in Paddington are a perfect example of what we're talking about here. They are, incidentally, not just a beautiful and unique shopping precinct in inner Brisbane at the very heart of our community; they are the places where the next generation will get their first opportunities, will get their first foot in the door of the workplace and will gain the foundational skills they need in areas like service, sales and whatever it is that they will take with them and further develop into their future careers or wherever their future takes them. These businesses are the biggest source of opportunities for the next generation and they're also, right now, a very big driver of the prosperity that we need to see in the heart of all of our communities. That's the secret power of small businesses if it can be unlocked, and unlocking the secret power of small businesses involves governments trying to make their burdens lighter, not heavier.

With this bill here today, millions of small and medium businesses across Australia will have their burden lightened. They'll get the tax relief this government has been promising them sooner, five years earlier than was first planned. This bill means that businesses with a turnover below that $50 million threshold will face a tax rate of 25 per cent in the year 2021-22 rather than 2026-27, and similar timing changes will be applied to the rollout of the 16 per cent tax discount for unincorporated businesses in that very important unincorporated business sector. What it means is that all of those small businesses in places just like Paddington in the hearts of all our electorates—retail shops, cafes, family owned pubs—will have thousands of extra dollars to invest back in their businesses, to invest in their staff or in new staff or the capital expenditure that helps make their staff and their operations achieve more.

This is the reality that, sadly, too many commentators and decision-makers don't fully understand or appreciate when they talk about tax in Australia, because they don't really understand how it is that small businesses work. Most small businesses want to grow. They invest their profits back into their business, creating more investment, more jobs and higher wages, including through higher productivity.

Today is another very serious day when the political contrast in this country becomes clearer. We can't forget that those opposite do have a history of welching their promises on tax cuts, and even then their formal position right here and now is that they promise $200 billion of additional taxes across our economy. In contrast, this bill reduces the burden on small businesses in our local communities, reinforcing the job creation and the growth we're starting to see re-emerge right across Australia. Our government's economic plan is working, and this bill's fast-tracking of tax relief for small, medium and household businesses right across Australia is the next step to delivering that economic plan.

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