Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Consumer Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I think so. While some members in the government might be bored with the processes of parliament, we are not. We respect it.

Mr Robert interjecting—

That's tough! But we do offer leadership and stability and policy, and we will take these policies around the country as we go into an election period shortly. We'll make sure small business confidence is restored through consistent common sense and steady cabinet processes toward policymaking, unlike what we've seen this week with the instant asset write-off just popping up. You had the great opportunity to just legislate that in the budget last night. You could have done that, but you thought you'd wait for 30 minutes and get the pomp and ceremony of a budget.

Mr Robert interjecting—

The more you say that, Assistant Treasurer, the more I'm just going to stand here and talk about policies for small business.

Mr Robert interjecting—

Let's leave that for someone else to explain. What we have are a government that are not really working in the best interests of the Australian people. As you can see today, they're quite bored with these processes and these debates over the importance of small business. They have internal unrest over much of their policy direction. It's not conducive to any progressive policy approach and only hinders the efforts of SMEs to be competitive and viable in a modern Australia.

A tax policy such as Labor's Australian investment guarantee is superior to the government policy as it stands. We understand the importance of measures to assist small and medium business enterprises, and that's exemplified in the investment guarantee policy but equally by the ATO appeals commissioner, in antiphoenixing proposals, in a pledge to make unfair contract terms illegal and in a $1 billion advanced manufacturing fund, which will be available to SMEs around the country to try to help build their capacity in manufacturing. We know that every small and medium business is unique and the diversity of Labor's policies in support of these businesses encompass many different portfolio areas. Like I said before, our pledge to have a service guarantee on the NBN is going to be particularly important to small businesses right around this country. The main point of this is certainty. Businesses around Australia are sick and tired of the lack of certainty and clarity they're getting from this government.

Back to the instant asset write-off: renew it—sure, that's fine; renew it again—sure, that's fine. We'll keep renewing it. We support this. We started it. Bringing it up to $25,000 is, of course, fine. We'll support it. Extend it to businesses with a turnover of $50 million—yes, of course. But why not make it permanent? Why not make the instant asset write-off permanent? You have businesses year-on-year wondering if they are able to claim the write-off between tax years while they go about investing in assets for their business. This government keep dropping it, piecemeal, year in, year out, so why not make it permanent? What's the trouble there? It's certainly something Labor seek to do and will do, and it's why industry groups are supporting our policy to make the instant asset write-off for businesses a permanent fixture in small business and tax reform.

Debating this is a reminder that provides the certainty of replacing an old small-business policy bandaid year in, year out. It's symptomatic of the government's approach to governing over the last two parliamentary terms: lots of flip-flops and not getting much done. These bandaid solutions do nothing to address the real problems facing modern Australia. As we know and as we've seen, many members of this government are stuck in the past and are only keen to look back and never to the future. We see the change in the members opposite, our colleagues on the other side of the House, by them changing their names. The member for Goldstein is now a modern Liberal. The candidate for Wentworth, I think, is also now a modern Liberal. If members opposite want to differentiate themselves in their own party, why don't they just take it a leap further and perhaps do what the member for Chisholm has done, which is just quit the party and have their own voice as these modern Liberals?

The modern Liberal the member for Goldstein has paid increasing attention toward pensioners in this country whilst at the same time this government have sought to cut pensions. I wish he applied as much thought to small businesses in this country. If those opposite, whoever is taking up the modern Liberal title—and I'm sure there are going to be a few in the coming weeks—wanted to fight so hard for small business, why do they initially oppose our access to justice measures?

Why did they do that for so long and then wait until the last minute for their country cousins, the Nationals, to threaten to cross the floor before they helped small businesses in a very practical way and provided them with access to justice? But those measures have come in, and I'm grateful to the member for Fenner for his work in that regard, as I'm sure are all small and medium enterprises across this country.

Obviously, people work for small businesses around this country—

Mr Robert interjecting—

Yes, I know! It might come as a treat for the Assistant Treasurer to know that little gem of information. When the modern Liberals scrap penalty rates, do they forget about the workers that work for small businesses? Small businesses—and I've spoken about this before in Hansardhave pointed out to me that all penalty rates are entirely predictable. We know when public holidays are, we tend to know when Sundays are and we know when different hours of the day are, when penalty rates can be attracted to a person's salary or wage. This is a cost of business; it's not an extra to fund. Good business owners know their obligations. It's the same, for that matter, as paying people's superannuation. I can't tell you the number of complaints I get to my electoral office from people finding they're not being paid superannuation from business owners. That is of course a grave problem for those employees, but moreover it's a problem for other small-business owners who are, quite frankly, being cheated by their competitors who are now creating an unlevel playing field. I know everyone agrees that this is something to be addressed.

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