Brett Whiteley (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Small Business. I refer the minister to the article on the front page of my local paper, The Advocate, this morning reporting a doubling of business owners with payments overdue on their electricity bills. Minister, how on earth is this government helping small business in Tasmania compared to the mess that the party opposite left?

Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is an outstanding question.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There was more than just a little bit of argument in that question.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Braddon would perhaps like to repeat his question leaving out the argument.

Opposition members: Rephrase it!

Brett Whiteley (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, how is the government helping small business in Tasmania?

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Minister for Small Business.

Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Speaker, I had a hunch that the question was for me. I want to thank the member for Braddon for his question, and, yes, I have seen the article where there is a doubling of the number of small business customers really grappling with rising energy costs. I draw heavily from Sylvia Sayers, the Devonport Chamber of Commerce and Industry president. She makes the point that 'running a small business is getting more and more expensive' and that 'costs are increasing'. She goes on to say that when costs increase it just puts extra burden on the economy where, in the case of Tasmania, the economy is not that flash and where people are more careful with their expenditure.

She goes on to talk about it being a 'double whammy'. The people in Tasmania know about the double whammy. They have had the double whammy of Labor-Green alliance governments in Tasmania, as they have had previously at a federal level. Madam Speaker, you would remember the carbon tax we were promised we would not have but that we did have. That was a creation of the Labor-Green alliance. What we need in Tasmania is a chance for Tasmanians, who are enterprising people, to have every opportunity to succeed. The abolition of the carbon tax is a really meaningful and constructive step in that direction.

The Tasmanian Liberal opposition have pointed to a reduction in household electricity prices of 5.6 per cent, gas prices becoming more affordable, exporters having another price pressure taken off them so that they can create jobs, a reduction in freight costs and the costs of using the Bass Strait ferry and TasRail internally. The Tasmanian people know that if Labor has its way this tax will not only go up and become even more of a burden and create even greater pressure on those businesses but also that it will actually be extended to freight as well. So in addition to the extraordinary costs of cross-channel freight costs, we will have on-road freight costs going up as well, all adding to the pressure on the Tasmanian economy. It will be cheaper to travel on the Spirit of Tasmania if we get rid of the carbon tax. The flights in and out of the great southern island would be cheaper as well. But what can we do about that? What we can do is get the Labor opposition here to actually get rid of this tax. They do not like being reminded that under Labor 412,000 jobs were lost in small business. Did you know that is 1,320 jobs for every week of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government? But did you hear a word from Labor? No.

Let me help the opposition: a small business job is a local job; a small business job is an Australian job. Perhaps the reason they were not interested in 412,000 small business jobs going is that maybe they were not union jobs and perhaps that was why they did not care. But for states like Tasmania to get rid of the double whammy of the Green-Labor alliance and the punishment and pain of the carbon tax, we need to get this Labor opposition off their backside to actually support the efforts of this government to remove this cost impost. The other thing they can do on 15 March is elect Will Hodgman and his team. We know about the natural system in Tasmania; we need the enterprise ecosystem supported, and you can do that by a change of government in Tasmania as well.