Mr HAMILTON (Groom) (17:29): In speaking in support of these very sensible amendments, it is heartening to hear so many members on this side of the House speak passionately about small businesses. Like many here, in my log cabin story there’s a small business. It was as small as you could get—just my father and I, and I wasn’t paid. We had a rusted HiLux and went around South East Queensland doing concreting. It’s a great way to start. There was no accounting division, no HR and no health and safety. It was just us navigating our way forward.
I want to speak to another part of what small business does. I want to speak about one of the constituents of the member for Riverina and the opportunity that they provide for Australia. I’m talking about PYBAR, a small business in the mining sector that started off out in Parkes in the Northparkes mine. It invested heavily in good people, gave people a chance and gave them the opportunity to do more. One of the things with small businesses is there’s always a chance to play up a level and to go further because there isn’t some great big corporate body in front of you. If you can do it, they’ll give you a shot. I think of Paul, Yvette, Brendan and Andrew Rouse from PYBAR, who did that and gave me an opportunity early in life, and I’m very grateful because it was a small business that was willing to give me that chance.
I heard one of the earlier speakers say that small businesses don’t really think about what happens down here. My experience has been quite the opposite. Small businesses are very focused on what happens down here. I remember during the COVID period the number of small businesses who knew exactly what the impact of things like JobKeeper would have on them. Afterwards they’ve spoken with tears in their eyes about how interventions by the government during that time kept their business afloat, kept their kids in school and kept the car payments going through. They are very aware of what happens down here, and they remember the role that we have played in helping small business over a long period of time. We can proudly look them in the eye and say, ‘Yes, we’re proud to have delivered the lowest small business tax rate in 50 years.’ We did that
They remember very well the poor friends that the ALP have been to them. If you speak to small businesses, their concerns are very simple. On IR, these aren’t businesses that have lawyers on demand who can wade through the various IR changes that have come through. On red tape, they don’t have the ability or the overheads to carry it. They’re concerned about the impact of inflation and the very small margins that they’re operating at. As the member for Moncrieff talked about, they are often operating at a personal loss. They are often the last people to be paid and are often walking away with nothing more than the pride of knowing that their business can open its doors the next day.
What they don’t like when they look down here and what they don’t like to see is government’s picking winners—a billion dollars for a computer company from Silicon Valley with a great big ‘Australian made’ sticker slapped on the side. They don’t like that at all. It’s a slap in the face when they hear that this government is supporting small business. They don’t take too kindly to that.
There are subsidies worth $13 billion going into an energy sector that has been absolutely tearing at their bottom lines. If you want to talk to small business about their big drivers, energy costs are a consistent theme. I think of John at the Southtown IGA in my electorate, who’s invested $60,000 in energy-saving equipment and has still seen his energy bills go up after that investment. This is what they’re concerned about. The ability to employ a casual workforce, this is what’s important to them as they flex and they grow and they go through these teething stages. One thing small businesses rarely want is to stay small. They want to grow and expand like PYBAR did and to seek further opportunities.
There is a reason for us to be focused on the instant asset write-off. I go back to that time during COVID when support was needed and businesses had their eyes focused very keenly on what was happening in this place. This was the ability to invest at a time when there were significant challenges. We have different challenges now, but they are no less threatening to small businesses.
At a time when we have seen the greatest fall in productivity since we recorded productivity, they want the ability to focus on investments that can drive productivity—which is exactly what the instant asset write-off is all about—like being able to get that new ute, the new tools and the things that can do a little bit extra in the same time period. That’s what this is all about. It could not be more important. Productivity has fallen off a cliff, and we know that with productivity falling so do real wages. They’ve been tied together, and we can see that, and that is where we will continue to drive under this government.
