Tom Connell:
Well, I did speak as well with Small Business Minister Anne Aly a short time ago. Started by asking her whether changes to the CGT – negative gearing are indeed a broken promise.
PM says done for the right reasons. Does that mean, I mean, is there, is it worth making big promises before elections anymore if you can break them, as long as it’s the right thing to do?
Anne Aly:
Well, the Budget’s around 24 hours away, a bit more than 24 hours. So, I’m not going to pre‑empt anything that comes in that will be in the Budget. But I will say this, Tom. You know, I think when governments are elected, they’re elected, yes, on the policies that they take to an election, but I think also that there is an expectation from the Australian people that the people who represent them will use their judgement and respond to the issues of the day. And I think governments being able to respond in a manner that’s responsible and take the opportunities like budgets to be able to respond to key issues that are raised by the members of their electorate, I think is the right thing to do. I think that’s what good government does, is it responds to issues as they arise.
Connell:
Or a change in conditions. But what’s changed? What issue has arisen? It was not long ago we had an election and the housing situation was basically the same, wasn’t it?
Aly:
I think the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers put it well when he spoke on it earlier where he said, you know, at that point we were really focused on supply and we continue to be really focused on supply. But it’s clear that there are other, other kinds of levers, looking at other levers that the government can use.
The fact is, and you know, just recently, last week – actually not even last week – on Friday I held a coffee catch up with members of my electorate. And you know, I think pretty much everyone who was there was well over the age of 50 and every single one of them raised housing not for themselves, but for their children and for their grandchildren. This is an issue that is on everybody’s minds. It’s not just on first‑home buyers minds, but it’s also on the minds of parents and grandparents about thinking about what the future is going to be for their children and their capacity to access housing.
Connell:
Obviously the changes spoken about wouldn’t just affect housing. When you look at say CGT changes, they could affect small business. You’re the representative, you’re the minister. Is that something you’ve made clear would have a big impact on small business owners if they have a change to the CGT, they could be looking at a much bigger tax bill when they sell their business.
Aly:
Well, again, I’m not going to speculate on what’s in the Budget that’s around 24 hours away. But you do ask about small business and there are some things that we’ve already announced for small business. When I talk to small businesses, not just at the local level in my electorate, but also their stakeholders and their, their advocates, there are 3 things that they raise for me. And they are cash flow, they are regulatory burden or red tape as it’s called, as I – as it’s often referred to, and access to skilled workers.
And so across all of those 3, there are things that we’ve already announced. One of them of course, being the making permanent, the instant asset write‑off. As you will know, it’s been kind of pushed down the track that, you know, every year will it be renewed, will it not be renewed? We’ve now embedded it and made it permanent. And I think that’s a huge win for small business that’s going to save them over 370,000 hours when they come to do their tax return, but it also guarantees cash flow for them.
In terms of removing regulatory burden, there are announcements that were already made – have already been made in that regard as well. Harmonising national systems, removing the fee for access to Australian standards and of course simplifying the building regulations. And then on skilled workers, our fee‑free TAFE has been a game changer in terms of creating a pipeline of skilled workers for small business. But we’re also making reforms to skilled migration as well. So, yeah, all of these things are in line with our National Small Business Strategy. We’ll continue to work with states and territories on those things as well.
Connell:
So, I guess a lot of small businesses wanted, have spoken about the changes you wanted to make. They could be blindsided by a CGT change. Let me put it this way to you. So, is it fair to say, I’m sure you’ve heard you’ve spoken to a lot more small businesses since getting the job and they talk about how they often have a small salary, they don’t pay themselves a lot, try to get through, keep the business going and for a lot of them the hard work might come off when they sell the business and that makes those last 5 or 10 years worth it. They’d get a bit of a shock, wouldn’t they, if when they sell the business they’re suddenly up for a much bigger tax bill? Is that fair to say?
Aly:
Well, again, I’m not going to speculate on what is or isn’t in the Budget –
Connell:
I’m not saying what’s in or out of it. But if that, is that a path they take now, would that be a shock if that changed?
Aly:
But I will say, Tom, that one of the things that I do, is that when I speak to businesses and when I speak to my colleagues is to continually advocate for any policy decisions that we make to be cognisant of the impact that it will have on small businesses.
Connell:
So, the situation I set out, is that something you do hear about?
Aly:
It’s not. Not specifically, no. It’s not something that I’ve heard about directly from small businesses.
Connell:
That people pay themselves quite a small salary to keep things going.
Aly:
But should anything that we do impact on small businesses differentially or have an adverse impact on small businesses. Small businesses that I speak to, their advocates and their stakeholders know that I will speak up for them in those, in those instances.
Connell:
So, that’s, those, that sort of change that would affect them. You would be checking with groups, individuals, first of all, ‘Hey, how might these changes affect you?’ Before just going ahead and doing it.
Aly:
Of course, that’s part of my job, is to consult with small businesses to make sure that I’m on top of the ways in which they’re affected by any kind of policy changes. But also –
Connell:
There’s not going to be some shock, oh, we didn’t realise this would happen as a small business.
Aly:
But also not taking our eye off the fact of those 3 key things that small businesses keep raising with me. We have a national small business plan that we work with on states and territories. And as I said, the 3 big things are cash flow, red tape or the regulatory burden and access to skilled workers.
Connell:
Okay. I’m going to ask you finally, you’ve been in parliament 10 years and you’re now the Minister for Multicultural Affairs. Multiculturalism in this nation, that whole project, does it feel like it’s more frayed than it has been before over your time?
Aly:
Look, and to put it into context, I worked a lot in multiculturalism prior to coming into parliament as well. So, I feel like it’s been my life. My life, basically. I think, you know, speaking about multiculturalism, I refer to it as a kind of an aspect of our identity. It’s who we are. Australia is diverse. It’s always been diverse in terms of, you know, whether it’s embedded in our, in our natural landscape, our First Nations people spoke diverse languages and practice diverse cultural practices as well. And so I think it’s part of our nature, it’s part of who we are.
I think when we talk about – we’re talking about 3 things here. We’re talking about multiculturalism, social cohesion and racism. And there are times when those 3 converge, but they also are 3 pursuits that are worthy of pursuing in their own right as well.
I think when we see incidences of increasing racism, we saw recently, you know, the antisemitism at a child netball game of all places. People rightly question, you know, is our social cohesion fabric fraying? Is our multiculturalism, you know, fraying? But by and large, Australia has met these challenges before. Throughout our history, we have had challenges to our social cohesion, we’ve had challenges to multiculturalism and by and large, we’ve overcome them and we have become this nation, this very successful nation of diversity that welcomes multiculturalism, that celebrates multiculturalism and that values it.
Connell:
Minister, a busy time, I know. So, I thank you for your time.
Aly:
Sure. Thank you so much Tom.
Connell:
We’ll find out what’s in the Budget soon. Thank you.
Aly:
Thank you.