Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

Small business is one of the most important aspects of our economy. I would argue it's the foundation on which our country has been built, from when our Indigenous brothers and sisters participated in small business and traded to today, when we've got young people who are designing their own gumboots, having them made here in Australia and selling them. With this weather, I hope it's going gangbusters.

The Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman tells us that small business employs a whopping 44 per cent of our workforce—44 per cent!—and contributes around 35 per cent of total GDP. It's no wonder, then, that we rely so much on the hard work and enterprise that goes into starting, developing and growing small businesses, not to mention the risk that people take—often mortgaging their homes or asking parents and friends to go guarantor for a business. They're the lifeblood of our national economy and our local economies, too.

It shouldn't need pointing out, then, that the scourge of COVID has hit our small communities and our small businesses for six. No electorate has been exempted from the financial destruction that the pandemic has wrought. For those fortunate enough to still have regular employment, the shock is still felt, and in my own electorate of Paterson, I've had many discussions with business owners who are facing the very real threat of ruin, if they hadn't already had that happen.

Michelle Chrimes is a travel agent in my electorate. Her business has plummeted because of COVID. Her business relies on bookings for international travellers, and it's obvious that restrictions on national borders have decimated her income. Michelle was eligible for JobKeeper, and that has been a great help. Unfortunately, she's not eligible for the consumer travel support program. She cites issues in definitions around eligibility criteria as impeding her claim, an issue which anecdotally she says is being experienced by many others in her situation. Again, red tape is making it difficult when it should be an easier process.

While we should give credit where it's due in relation to the JobKeeper program, we must also identify the shortcomings. It came later than it should have, after we, Labor, dragged the government to the table, and now it's being extinguished sooner than it should be, while we plead to the government to keep it going. Claims of JobKeeper being rorted by the bigger players are rife, and this government refuses to acknowledge the fact or act. As with bushfire assistance funding, the announcements for funding are made but badly delivered—critically, if delivered at all. I hope we don't see this with the flooding that now is wreaking havoc right across New South Wales and into South-East Queensland.

We now have a package for the aviation sector. Once again, this is welcome news. I've met with and support the aviation sector in my own electorate and appreciate the benefit that it brings to the Paterson economy. What we need from this government, however, is a comprehensive and understandable approach that can be effectively rolled out in a reasonable time. What we have instead is a government reacting rather than planning and, basically, picking winners, rather than doing it in a considered and fair way. They receive pressure from industry and then they make a snap decision on the run. I sincerely hope we are seeing the light at the end of the COVID tunnel, but we are a way off yet. It's too soon to pull the rug out from the small business economy.

We need a national governmental approach that recognises that all Australians need assistance. We shouldn't leave out universities and councils, and we shouldn't implement assistance schemes that hardly anyone understands and that are funded yet made no use of. That's the criminality of this; it's just a crying shame that the assistance is there but it is so difficult for people to make use of. It should be easy. We should have systems in place that help people. If the money is there, it should be spent and it should be spent on small business—getting it supported and up and running as soon as it can be.

For a government that boasts about being the partner to business and the economy, believe me when I say that I would welcome them showing some form in that department, because, so far, they have left too many behind, and we're seeing it again with the rollout of the vaccine. It's there but is not being implemented by this government well enough. Our small business community, like our GPs and their receptionists—if you're a GP receptionist, I feel sorry for you. Keep up the good work, but you do need a government to back you in properly.

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