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

My apologies, Deputy Speaker Claydon.

I want to talk a little bit about our National Small Business Strategy. The fact is you cannot deliver and you cannot say that you deliver for small businesses if you don't have a strategy. Our small business strategy, which I again remind the House is the very first national small business strategy, looks at three pillars. It looks at how we help businesses grow, it looks at cutting red tape and it looks at creating an even playing field for small businesses. These are the three things that small businesses always raise with me when I speak to them. They tell me: 'We just want an even playing field. We just want a fair go.' They tell me, 'There's too much red tape,' and often that red tape is over different levels of government, which is why it's important to speak to states and territories. And they tell me that they want to be able to grow and they want to be able to thrive. And if you have those three pillars as the basis, the principles, upon which you base the work that you do in small business, then you are able to deliver for them.

Under those three pillars, there are a number of things that we have delivered. I want to talk a little bit about the instant asset write-off, which we extended. It's a $20,000 instant asset write-off. It allows small businesses to purchase the equipment that they need to keep going.

I want to talk about the many supports we have for businesses around digital solutions. A lot of small businesses are a bit reticent to uptake AI, to utilise digital solutions. I want to tell small businesses that there is help out there, to help you utilise digital solutions, to grow your business and to keep your business going.

I want to talk about the targets that we've set for government procurement. We've increased the target of government procurement for businesses under 20 billion to 40 per cent, and that means that any government contracts under 20 billion, 40 per cent of them must be small or medium enterprises. That really gives small businesses a fair go and an even playing field when it comes to getting government contracts.

One of the greatest issues that a lot of small businesses talk to me about is red tape. We've got states and territories committed to reducing red tape, getting rid of the clutter, so that small businesses can continue to get on with their core business and run the businesses they need to run. I've heard some pretty interesting stories about red tape, but we're also going to be looking into white tape—that's something that ASBFEO, the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman recommended. We are looking at white tape, which is that regulatory burden between corporate business and small business.

I'll go back to the fact that those opposite like to say they care about small business. They like to talk about small business, but the proof is really in the pudding. The proof is very much evident in the fact that in the nine months I've been the small-business minister, not once have they ever asked a question about small business. Not a single time. Not a single question.

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