Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer inform the House how the government is helping the people of Northern Australia to develop new economic opportunities? How will the budget help small businesses create growth and jobs, especially in Durack?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Durack for her question.

Mr Snowdon interjecting—

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

The member for Lingiari will desist or leave. The choice is his.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think the Prime Minister was being a little bit modest in his original answer when he said this is the best budget for small business, because I think it is the best budget for Northern Australia as well. It is a budget that helps to facilitate the opportunities for the opening up of the great north—the great north that many people have talked about. In fact, now that I think about it, I remember Kevin Rudd going up to Northern Australia during the last election campaign and proclaiming that he was going to make the whole of Northern Australia tax-free. We do not forget Kevin Rudd over here, and, from what I hear of the upcoming ABC political series, Kevin Rudd does not forget Bill Shorten either. That is what I gleaned last night in the green room at Q&Athis is going to be a very interesting series about the Labor Party!

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order on direct relevance. This cannot possibly be relevant to the question that the Treasurer was asked.

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

The member will resume his seat. The Treasurer has the call.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If it is not relevant now, it will be relevant next week! We believe in Northern Australia and we want to invest in Northern Australia; that is why the Prime Minister committed $100 million to improve the cattle routes across Northern Australia. Also, significantly, we are investing $5 billion in a Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, a loan facility to help develop pipelines and ports and roads—the major infrastructure that is going to open up the great north. As the member for Durack knows, that—coupled with our small business initiatives in the budget—is going to help 12,700 small businesses in her electorate. The Labor Party knows a lot about small businesses, because they have turned big businesses into small businesses over the years. They are experts at that, and in turning small government into big government. They turn small government into big government and big business into small business. That is the expertise of the modern Labor Party.

We know that there are 18,000 small businesses in Australia that are exporting, and we know that they can do more. So we are facilitating the future with our initiatives on accelerated depreciation, on reducing the company tax rate for small business, on reducing the tax rate for unincorporated small businesses—the people that the Leader of the Opposition forgot; those 1.5 million sole traders and partners out there who were forgotten by the Leader of the Opposition but are always remembered by us. We are not just the best friend of small business, we are the best friend of Northern Australia.

Mr Snowdon interjecting—

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

The member for Lingiari will desist or leave. The choice is his. He is warned.