Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party, Minister for International Development) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member opposite for his question, because it gives me an opportunity to really talk about small business—something that I'm passionate about and something that the members on this side of the House are all passionate about as well.

As I said yesterday, small businesses operate right across the country. They are everyone from your local Indian grocer to your hairdresser and the place that you go to get your lunch. I'm pleased to report that, since we took office, since this Albanese Labor government took office in 2022, there are 800,000 more new small businesses operating right across Australia. They comprise female led businesses—around 35 per cent are female led—and 40 per cent on average are led by migrants, people who are aspirational, who come to this country and who see starting up a small business as a way of making a life for themselves and for their families. Small businesses employ more than five million Australians, and they contribute more than $590 billion to our nation's economy every single year.

I'll remind the member opposite that this is the government that, last term, introduced the very first National Small Business Strategy, which guides the ways in which we will work with state and local governments to address those issues for small business.

See this speech in context