Mr MILES (Parliamentary Secretary [Cabinet] to the Prime Minister)(11.32 a.m.) —I want to make a few very brief comments. I was a bit amused by the comment by the Labor Party that we are only interested in the big end of town. Only today in the Australian we see the headline `Taxpayers' $60m fails to save jobs'.

Mr Ronaldson —How much?

Mr MILES —Sixty million. Given by whom? Given by Simon Crean, by the Labor Party. Who to? DuPont. They are small business people—$60 million! Under their rules, it is disappearing. The member for Wills (Mr Kelvin Thomson) is saying that the Labor Party did not look after the big end of town! I want to say to him that this government is going to look after small business, and is doing so. Virtually month by month there are programs and developments which assist the small business people of this country. A lot of them had to live with 22 per cent interest rates under the previous Labor government.

Then, of course, in reply, the member for Wills comments conceded that there was not enough money for child care and a few of these other programs. That is true, there was not. Why wasn't there enough money? Because of the Labor Party's big black hole—$10.5 billion—which had to be sorted out and which had been put on the bankcard by the previous government.

What have we done about it? It was not our responsibility but we are doing something about it. We did not cause it but we have done something about it. Within three years we will have a balanced budget so that we can have programs and services which are paid for by the government during the period in which they raised the taxation revenue—not like the previous government where they just wanted to rack it all up on a bankcard.

This government is about doing something to assist small business so that they are not going to be burdened down by the proposal which has been put to us by the Labor Party and by the Democrats. The Labor Party really are an anti-small business party. It is against small business people providing for their retirement. That is what this is about. To come in here and give the impression that they are actually supporting small business is really beyond belief.

First they have tried to halve the capital gains tax exempt amount—Senator Harradine thwarted that attempt to halve the amount to small business people. So it was only because of the Liberal and National Party senators and Senator Harradine that that was thwarted. That is what the Labor Party and the Australian Democrats were on about.

This is from a party that was against a superannuation surcharge. I thought the superannuation surcharge would be on those people who had been regarded as well off. Yet the Labor Party opposes those sorts of things and then comes in here and says that we are supporting the big end of town. What we are doing is getting a balanced approach to these types of matters. We oppose this amendment very strongly.