Julie-Ann Campbell (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to thank the member for Goldstein for giving me the opportunity to talk about small businesses and the supports that they would be deprived of if those opposite were sitting on the government benches. The member for Goldstein said that we need to back small business, and that's right. We need to back small business. But the opposition does not back small business. They didn't back small business when they voted against tax cuts. They didn't back small business when they didn't back in the instant asset write-offs. And they didn't back small business when it came to making sure that we're investing more towards innovation.

In my seat of Moreton, on Brisbane's south side, we have so many small businesses. Whether you're brewing the state's No. 1 beer at Slipstream in Yeerongpilly, whether you're manufacturing gaskets at Queensland Gaskets in Salisbury, whether you're serving up—this is a controversial one—the best char siu in the country at Burlington BBQ in Sunnybank or whether you're medevacing people home if you work at Retrieval Medics International—it doesn't matter which of those businesses you talk to, one thing is clear every time. Small businesses want the same things. They want stability and they want certainty. They want those things so that they can plan for the future. They want those things so that they can invest in innovation to make business more productive. And they want those things so that they can employ Australians, Queenslanders and people from my local community.

What we've seen over the past few months, the past few days and for a long time now is an opposition that has nothing stable and nothing certain about it. The on-off-on-off relationship between the Liberals and the Nationals has been tumultuous to say the least. The 'will they, won't they' that continues—week on, week off—is not just unedifying, it's downright disappointing. It's disappointing because this is serious. It's not a sitcom. It's not a game. Australians and Australian small businesses deserve better than the spotlight being not on them but on the coalition.

If they really cared about small business, they wouldn't have opposed those tax cuts that are benefiting 1.5 million sole traders, and they wouldn't have called those tax cuts 'a cruel hoax'. They wouldn't have opposed energy bill relief for millions of small businesses across this country. They wouldn't have called our fee-free TAFE measures 'wasteful spending'. If those opposite sat on this side of the chamber, hundreds of thousands of new tradies would not be working for small trade businesses as they are today. Worse, they would have been denied the opportunity to start small businesses of their own.

On this side of the House we don't just talk about ourselves; we talk about taking action. Under the Albanese Labor government, we've invested $2 billion in targeted supports for small business. We extended the instant asset write-off. We delivered the first-of-its-kind National Small Business Strategy. We invested $33.4 million to improve payment times, ensuring small businesses are paid what they are owed sooner. We're extending unfair trading practice protections to small businesses, making their engagement with large business fairer. We're investing $80 million to help businesses adopt new digital technologies and boost their cyber-resilience. Small businesses are eligible for the Cheaper Home Batteries Program, helping them save even more on their energy bills. And let us not forget that it was this government that reopened global markets, allowing our local producers to sell their wine, their lobsters, their beer and much, much more in this country.

And these policies are making a real difference to small business. Businesses like Endua, in Archerfield in my local electorate, have benefited from funding from the federal government's Industry Growth Program, which provides grants that are aligned with the seven government priority areas for the $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund. Another Moreton success story is the Bureau Technologies Group, which received funding through the Cooperative Research Centre Projects Grants program. It has developed breakthrough solar technology to convert carbon neutral biogas to green methanol fuel on par with fossil fuel prices.

It's clear that Labor stands behind small businesses and delivering real outcomes— (Time expired)

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