Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Lyne for proposing this matter of public importance. There are nearly four million Australians engaged and employed in small business, and there are a further 1.2 million non-employing small businesses. About 1.9 million Australians are engaged in small business operations—and I was one of them. At 26 years of age I took a punt and decided to be involved in small business. I was in a legal practice which grew into a very large operation over many years, and I pay tribute to my various partners over the years. But it was a punt. Every day in small business you take a risk—every single day. You do not get any protections; you do not get sick pay; you do not get long service leave or annual leave or penalty rates. You get nothing. Instead, in many ways, you are stuck with red tape and bureaucracy that governments of both persuasions have historically imposed upon small business.

This government recognises the challenges and difficulties of small business, particularly in rural and regional Australia. In my electorate of Blair, which is an electorate of about 5,300 square kilometres, moving up to 6,400 with the redistribution, I am currently servicing about 70 per cent of the city of Ipswich, just about all of the Fassifern Valley, the Lockyer Valley and now the Somerset region. It is a large area. I talk to the farmers and I talk to the small business operators in those areas and I know the challenges.

In my consideration and belief, small business has been advantaged by previous Labor governments. The Whitlam government brought in the Trade Practices Act to give small business a chance to compete against big business. The Trade Practices Act in the 1970s was a very, very important legislative reform. I was involved in cases in my legal practice that saw small business operators advantage themselves through that legislation to help them to enjoy a degree of equality and equalise the power imbalance. The reduction of tariffs, I think, was an important opening-up of the economy. The Hawke and Keating governments floated the dollar, opened up the economy to allow it to become a market-driven economy, allowed the entry of foreign banks into this country, brought in in a really considered way—in consultation with the trade union movement—enterprise bargaining, and brought in for the first time a great national treasure and initiative which was the superannuation scheme which so many Australians benefit from.

Small business is the backbone of our economy. Sadly, those opposite mouth the words that they are on the side of free enterprise—but they are not. The truth is that they are forever on the side of big business, forever on the side of oligopoly, and always have supported high tariff walls of protection which result in high prices for consumers. Open, competitive markets and removing barriers improve the economy and make it fitter and more competitive, and that helps small business. That allows small business to invest. It gives us a chance. The coalition’s idea to help small business was to put upon them the sclerotic burden and rigidity of Work Choices, and of course they imposed the GST on them.

The truth is that we are engaged in a nation-building enterprise. My area has been neglected for many, many years. Indeed, the mayor of Ipswich, Paul Pisasale, often said that the last real, serious investment—until this Rudd government came to power—was in fact the Ipswich Civic Centre in Whitlam’s day. Now we see a massive amount of money injected into the local economy, and that is because of the Nation Building and economic stimulus strategy of the Rudd government—876 projects in the federal electorate of Blair, $203 million, 313 projects in 85 schools. Lest you think that that is just academic, let me tell you what Mal Jacobsen of Paynter Dixon said to me when they were opening up Cabanda Link in Rosewood, which is an aged-care facility which his company was working on, and they were also involved in the Rosewood State Primary School BER funding initiative. He sent me an email indicating that 625 people had jobs by virtue of those two projects—money from this government going into the small community of Rosewood in the rural parts of the city of Ipswich. That is the kind of thing that will help those small business operators in Johns Street, the main street of Rosewood.

We are also seeing thousands of jobs created by the most important infrastructure project in South-East Queensland, in my view, and that is the Ipswich Motorway upgrade. There are 4,000 jobs being created. It is the most important road that leads west of Brisbane. It links into the Warrego Highway, which the member for Maranoa talks about all the time, and the Brisbane Valley Highway, which leads north-west. The truth is that this initiative will make a huge difference to small businesses—the farmers in the Lockyer Valley, the Fassifern Valley and the Somerset region. How can they get their produce to Brisbane on a road that is clogged? They cannot. They have often told me that their produce has decayed because they could not get it there on time. They find that difficult. They cannot get their employees to business appointments in Brisbane because of the infrastructure bottlenecks that were created by the Howard government, with their inertia, inaction and idleness in failing to upgrade the Ipswich Motorway. It is not just the Ipswich Motorway; it is Redbank Plains Road, the Warrego Highway and the Cunningham Highway—important road infrastructure in South-East Queensland—helping small business operators in towns like Kalbar, Boonah, Laidley, Gatton, Esk and Fernvale. This is what government can do to help small business in rural and regional Queensland.

Helping small business can be done in a number of ways; for example, through the $2 million we are giving to Bremer TAFE in Ipswich—a great initiative—and the $10 million from the Better Regions Program to help revitalise the city of Ipswich. Those things are very important—real assistance. I acknowledge also the member for Rankin. The Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy is here today. I remembered vividly his coming to the electorate of Blair in the last federal election campaign to announce that we would be funding the Ipswich Business Enterprise Centre. That centre is servicing not just Ipswich; it is part of a $46 million project servicing all those rural areas that I talked about. It involves mentoring and giving advice. It is a one-stop centre, giving assistance, running seminars and helping all those types of operators in those rural areas outside Brisbane and Ipswich. I have spoken to many business operators and people involved in chambers of commerce in those areas, and they warmly acknowledge and applaud the government’s initiative to help small business in their area. Tony Axford, the manager of the Ipswich Business Enterprise Centre, has told me how important he has felt and how warmly he has been received by so many people when he has been running seminars in that area. That is a $1.2 million initiative across many years.

The member for Lyne was talking about Regional Development Australia committees. We have appointed one in the federal electorate of Blair and across Oxley, Forde and Dickson. It is the Ipswich and West Moreton Regional Development Australia committee, looking at big infrastructure projects, what we can do about regional hospitals and what we can do to help small business. We have the Hon. Dr David Hamill as the chair of our local RDA committee. We have Councillor Kathy Benstead from the Scenic Rim area, a great community champion in that area, as the deputy chair, and we have some great people from the rural parts, as well as Ipswich, involved in that project.

I know that the farmers and the small business operators in those rural communities are looking forward to the National Broadband Network being created. That is an important infrastructure project for regional Australia. It is particularly important in terms of e-health. It is important for rural hospitals in places like Boonah, Esk, Laidley and Gatton—not just Ipswich but the rural areas outside it. Making broadband fast and affordable is critical. It will also make us globally competitive. It will help farmers in those rural areas. It will make sure that people who live in Kalbar will have the same rights to operate as the people who live in Melbourne; the people who live in Boonah the same as Brisbane; the people who live in Laidley the same as Adelaide. It is helping small business operators and farming communities, and I warmly commend that program.

I thank the member for Lyne for bringing forward this matter of public importance. It is terrific that he has raised this issue. It is very important for all our areas. (Time expired)

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