A division of the Liberal Party of Australia
BURDEKIN AREA SMALL BUSINESS AWARDS
21 April, 2006
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Thanks Bruce, thanks for lending a little extra lustre to this night tonight. I understand your rellies in the town sort of insist you always come but it is a real delight to have someone of your standing and notoriety here to MC tonight’s function.
Ladies and Gentlemen can I recognise also Rosemary Menkins the Member for Burdekin and her husband Ray, our Mayor Cr Lyn McLaughlin, Deputy Mayor Cr Mark Haynes, Bruno Van der Heide the President of the Burdekin Area Business Association and Wayne Geeson from the Queensland Country Credit Union, the General Manager of Operations and in doing that can I congratulate both the Burdekin Area Business Association and the Queensland Country Credit Union for putting on this very significant night that does highlight the strength of our local business community.
Congratulations to the two winners so far and in advance could I congratulate the other winners of the awards.
Indeed can I congratulate all those who have entered into the award competition and can I congratulate every single small business in our community of Ayr.
They do provide for us, the people of the Burdekin, the goods and services we need, they provide employment, they provide strength to the economy of this locality and they support local charities and sporting events. They also provide many of the community leaders we have in this district. They are indeed much more than just shop or office keepers.
In fact they are part of 1.2 million small business operations in Australia. Those business operations in Australia provide 3.3 million fellow Australians with jobs, that is almost half the private sector non-agricultural employment in our nation. And my guess would be that in the Burdekin, the small business community directly or indirectly supports and employs more than half the regions workforce.
It’s an old cliché but its very, very true, as the Prime Minister often says, that small business continues to be and always will be the engine room of the Australian economy. It will always be the crucible in which the really competitive animal spirit of the Australian economy works best for the national interest.
And Ladies and Gentlemen, and that’s why the Federal Government has been so keen to work so hard in the last 10 years to support small businesses like those that you see here tonight.
We have delivered on a number of programmes, most importantly I would suggest is the strong economic environment that there is in Australia at the moment and has been for the last few years, which provides the right environment for small business.
Our economic growth has been very, very solid. Small business confidence is high, unemployment and interest rates are at historically low levels and inflation is low giving small business the certainty they need and an international competitiveness.
And in this region importantly as well, the Federal Government provided over $400 million to the sugar industry to keep the industry going at a time when it was struggling, to keep it going until the time when we new, and the industry new, it would be back on its feet. And in supporting the industry of course, we supported all of those small businesses who rely on the sugar industry for their existence and who support the sugar industry and make it the great industry it is in Australia.
And Ladies and Gentlemen at the national level we’ve taken some hard decisions. I might say with some pride, because of the majority we have in the Senate which was given to the Government here in Queensland, that we’ve been able to do things and correct things and to reform areas that have angered small business and restricted and restrained small business for many years in the past.
We’ve been able to remove that incorrectly so called Unfair Dismissal Legislation and in doing that we’ve opened up the shackles from small business. What we’ve done is to do away with that ‘go away’ money which was so much a part of that Unfair Dismissal Legislation.
We are trying to address the skill shortages that we know there is in Australia and in the Burdekin at the moment with 24 new Technical Colleges. We’re making workplace relations legislation simpler and fairer, easier for business to understand and we’re slowly trying to address the burden of red tape, which I acknowledge does still impact heavily on small business and I concede that the Federal Government and indeed all Governments have a lot further to go there.
All small businessmen, like all of us, have benefited from very substantial tax cuts in recent years, company tax has come down from 36% to 30%, in 2003 personal income tax was cut by $10 billion, 2004 by $15 billion, in 2005 by $21 billion and hopefully in the Federal Budget which comes down in just a few weeks time, there will be more tax relief for taxpaying Australians.
I guess the best thing Governments at all levels and certainly the Federal Government can do for small business is to get out of your hair and keep out of your way.
What we need to do is to keep the big picture right to allow small business to get out there and do what they do best, that is to provide services, provide employment and hopefully make big profits. And we want to help small business do that, we want to play our part as a Government in keeping that environment correct.
You might excuse me in highlighting that just last Thursday night the Australian Government, uniquely in the world, payed off the last of its net Government debt. 10 years ago the Government owed to lenders $96 billion. As of last Thursday we owe absolutely zero and we are the one nation in the world that can make that claim.
So we no longer pay interest to lenders. We use the money that would have been paid on interest to go towards Australians and things that keep Australia strong.
Ladies and Gentlemen this is a very significant night; it’s a great night for small business. I can tell you, and confirm what I think Bruno said, that this is a fabulous small business community in the Burdekin. As you’d appreciate in the last few years I’ve seen many small businesses right around Australia and indeed the world but when we do our shopping we always come home to Ayr to do it. And we’d go to Home Hill too only it’s a bit far away, but it’s a great small business community here. It always has been and it always will be.
Well done to the winners, well done, in fact, all small businesses who took part in the awards tonight, well done to the Lower Burdekin Region businesses. I wish you every success, I certainly hope you all become millionaires. Because if you all become millionaires you will support the local economy, you will create employment opportunities in this area, you will improve the quality of life – and you will pay more tax to the Federal Government!
So it is a goal that I think you should all be striving to achieve, I certainly hope you achieve it.
All the very best for the future, congratulations again to the Burdekin Area Business Association and Queensland Country Credit Union for putting on this night. Thank you for having me.