Mr LEO McLEAY —My question is to the member for Brand. I seek clarification of an aspect of the member's Trade Practices (Better Business Conduct) Bill 1996. Is it the intention of that bill to provide quick and effective assistance to the more than 800,000 small businesses in this nation following the acknowledgment by the Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia that it is a critical issue to negate the harsh and oppressive conduct of big business against small business? Why does this bill deserve the full and urgent support of the parliament?

Mr BEAZLEY —This question follows the remarks of the Prime Minister. If the Prime Minister wants to do something about small business, he ought to bring on the bill. The small business organisation has described this as their premier requirement from government to stop them being unfairly and uncompetitively preyed upon by those who would want to drive them out of the market. That is precisely what small business has asked for, not this ideological claptrap that the Liberal Party has managed to go on with here. The Prime Minister says that small business cannot create jobs. There are some two million jobs—three times the rate of job creation they had when in office.

Government members — Thirteen years of failure.

Mr SPEAKER —Order! Members on my right!

Mr BEAZLEY —You do not like it when you get it. Three times that rate of job creation—70 per cent of those jobs in small business. What have they offered instead? They would not do what is in the bill because it upsets their mates in big business, but what they will do is reduce their red tape by 50 per cent. When they gathered together all those small businessmen and said they would reduce it by so-called 50 per cent—

Dr Southcott —I take a point of order, Mr Speaker. Under standing order 143, questions may be put to a member in an area for which the member has charge.

Mr SPEAKER —There is no point of order.

Mr BEAZLEY —I welcome the interjection. It will assist the honourable member's education—he is a new member of this chamber. The point is they had this small gathering that the Prime Minister was boasting about. What was the message passed to that small business gathering? The message was, `By the way, we made that commitment about 50 per cent of red tape but that is off the table now. We do not know whether we can achieve that; we are no longer committed to the 50 per cent of red tape. What the Prime Minister has done, even though he has not confirmed it in other areas of budget speculation, is say now that there will be—

Mr Tuckey —I take a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would like to draw your attention, sir, to the previous words of the Leader of the Opposition entreating our side of the House to stick to the subject. Under this particular standing order he can talk only about his bill and when it should be introduced.

Mr SPEAKER —I thank the member for O'Connor.

Mr BEAZLEY —As far as the Prime Minister is concerned, the one thing he has said in this chamber is that he is going to introduce into this budget a change to the capital gains tax regime for small business. What a confession. So the savings that are going on here, the savings they have been talking about in the context of the so-called black hole, are savings to pay for his tax concessions.

Mr Tuckey —On a further point of order, the constraints of this section of the standing orders on the persons using it are extremely narrow. The Leader of the Opposition is slipping back into his old habit of government that, when you got a question on what you were supposed to do, you talked about what everybody else was supposed to do. His requirement—

Mr SPEAKER —There is no point of order. Resume your seat!

Mr BEAZLEY —That $200 million tax concession goes with some $2 billion worth of tax concessions that were pointed out by the finance department and Treasury to the opposition when they came into office and were unfunded by their cuts. They are now being funded by the cuts to the states. If ever there was a confession that the government were going to spend savings that was a confession by the Prime Minister just then. He does not like it at all; he is very agitated. He grizzles away in this place when he gets a bit of his own back.

Mr McGauran —On a point of order, Mr Speaker: your tolerance is being stretched to breaking point by the Leader of the Opposition. He has strayed from the strict requirements of the standing orders, which are that he provide an answer based only on the introduction of the bill. I ask you to bring him back to the subject matter, as required, or sit him down.

Mr SPEAKER —I thank the minister. I encourage the honourable member for Brand to stick very specifically to the text of the bill.

Mr BEAZLEY —This bill, when it is finally given consideration—if consideration it gets—will remove from small businessmen their primary concern. We put it before you and you would not pass it.

Mr Costello —You have had 13 years to consider it.

Mr BEAZLEY —We put this bill before you in the last parliament and you would not commit to it. What the government has done with the issue of this bill is refer it to a committee, to see the principle of it sit in that committee for years and not come back. That is its intention. This primary requirement of small business is a measure which will stop small business being preyed upon by larger businesses which seek to discriminate against them in supply and on rents. These are the real and day to day issues that small business deals with—their experience day to day. This is not on labour relations issues—they are employing people by the bushel under the policies put forward by the previous government. They are being massively assisted by such things as the EMDG and labour market programs—all of which are being cut. Do something decent for small business in this country; put our bill on and pass it.