Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This budget takes pressure off Australians now by building a stronger and more productive economy for the future. Hasluck actually provides a really great example because Hasluck is a community of small businesses—it's the Lonely Cafe in Midland, providing great service and the absolute best cheesy ham toastie sandwiches; it's Framous Picture Framing on the Great Eastern Highway, making everything look better; it's Claire at Precision Hair, who makes me look better; it's Cyclowest Radiopharmaceuticals in Bayswater who are investing in new technology; and it's the very many tradies in Brabham, building new housing, buying tools, upgrading equipment and taking on apprentices. This budget backs them in practically and directly.

One of the most important measures for small business continued in this budget is the instant asset write-off. Eligible small businesses—those with a turnover of under $10 million—can immediately deduct the cost of assets costing under $20,000 instead of waiting for years to claim depreciation. I know, when I established my distillery prior to entering this place, that that really mattered. Knowing that businesses can have that certainty over the long term because we're making it permanent is a significant step, and it means that that courier business in Hazelmere can invest also in new equipment, the local mechanic in Midland can upgrade the tools and the small logistics operator just near my office can improve productivity immediately. In my electorate alone, there are over 12,000 small businesses that are eligible for this measure.

I also want to get to a little bit about what we've heard from those opposite and that really sticky AI slop that's out there. Around 90 per cent of small businesses will not be affected by the capital gains tax changes that are part of our reform agenda for this budget. The existing small business concessions will remain in place. If you've owned a business for 15 years and are retiring, for example, you can still pay zero capital gains. You can still reduce your gains by 50 per cent on active assets. You can still exclude up to $500,000 through the retirement exemption, and you can still defer CGT by reinvesting in another business asset. Those protections are still there.

We talk about saving, investing and taking risks to take on a new business. As it was for me in setting up my business, so it is for the people across Hasluck. These are not abstractions. These are my constituents, and they are asking for simple law reform and legislative reform changes for tax reform. They want stability. They want fairness, and they want a government that understands the pressures that they're under right now. This budget does exactly that. It provides cost-of-living relief for households, and that includes our fifth tax cut, which those opposite are likely not to support. That tax cut is, in effect, a pay rise for people working in those very businesses. That money can go towards the essentials, but it can also go to discretionary spend in those businesses. It supports economic growth by making it easier for businesses, and it helps them to invest and expand.

As the Prime Minister stated in question time today, the $3½ billion in the budget is in new measures that lower taxes for business to encourage investment, including the instant asset write-off that I mentioned, the permanent loss carry back, help for start-ups, incentives for venture capital and better targeting of the R&D tax incentive. As I said, 90 per cent of the small businesses in Australia are eligible for existing concessions on capital gains, and they remain eligible today. That's 90 per cent of those 12,000 businesses in my electorate of Hasluck.

The truth is that this MPI says more about the opposition than it does about this ambitious budget, because they're only offering the slogans, and they're joining in that sticky AI slop, instead of offering solutions. Everything they do these days seems to be truly motivated solely by trying to climb out of that very deep hole that they're sitting in with One Nation. It's a hole that they dug themselves when they should have been writing policy. So they talk about backing small business, but they don't. We'll see the truth of it on Thursday.

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