Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was delighted in the last sitting to listen to the speeches of our new members of federal parliament and even more delighted to see how much experience in small business there has been. It is an incredibly impressive new group, some young and some not so young but all equally passionate to see small business thrive in our nation.

Personally, I was absolutely delighted to work with the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia, or COSBOA, as I have over many years, promoting local businesses in their excellent campaigns and, in the last couple of weeks, organising a small-business roundtable in Darwin, where the Minister for Small Business, Anne Aly, and I met with owners and representatives of about 25 small businesses in my electorate. I want to use this opportunity to thank Catherine Donnan and Nicole Walsh from COSBOA for all of their work.

I'm a member of and a regular attendee of events organised by Territory Proud, which is an organisation that is championing Territory owned and operated small businesses. I also recently attended a fantastic event held by the Palmerston Regional Business Association, the PRBA, at the Darwin Trailer Boat Club, where I was able to set out to that grouping our fantastic policies when it comes to not only economic development in the country more generally but also mitigating some of the worst effects of some of the global winds that our nation, above all others, is weathering the best.

We ran the roundtable with local small businesses, and some of the key issues that came up—some of them won't be surprising, given that it was in Darwin—included the cost of freight and the associated logistics infrastructure, which then impact on costs to build; the concentration of industries and then the loss of domestic suppliers as a result of that concentration; and, of course, the rising cost of insurance, which is a real issue for all businesses across our nation, particularly for small businesses.

Our government understands that many small businesses are under the pump due to interest rates, which we've been able to put downward pressure on with interest rate cuts, due to the conditions in the economic environment. We have played some role with the Australian people and with Australian industry, but there have been those cost-of-living pressures for everyday Australians and, of course, that global economic uncertainty has continued and weighed heavily on our economy.

Australian small businesses are obviously, as all honourable members understand and have articulated, absolutely vital to our nation's prosperity, contributing about $590 billion with a 'b' to our economy and employing over 5.4 million Australians. There are 2.62 million small businesses contributing almost $600 billion to the Australian economy, and the 5.16 million people employed by small businesses equate to almost 40 per cent of the workforce.

Our government, of course, is a hundred per cent committed to improving the operating environment in which these small and medium-sized businesses can invest and innovate and generate even more new jobs that will benefit Australians and Australian communities. We are easing the pressure, particularly on small businesses in the Northern Territory, with energy rebates, energy efficiency grants and the extension of the government's $20,000 instant asset write-off. We are delivering tax cuts for 1.5 million sole traders and supporting our hospitality sector and alcohol producers by pausing indexation on the draught beer excise. I'm sure that's something that the honourable member opposite would appreciate is good for hospitality. One thing that I worked hard to achieve is the DAMA, the designated area migration agreement, for the Northern Territory. We established, with the NT government, the best one in the country, and I'm proud of it. (Time expired)

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