Mr HAASE (2:43 PM) —My question is addressed to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Transport and Regional Services. Would the Deputy Prime Minister outline to the House how federal government initiatives will benefit small business operators in rural, regional and remote Australia?

Mr ANDERSON (Minister for Transport and Regional Services) —I thank the honourable member for his question. There is no doubt that, in broad terms, low interest rates and low inflation have put a firm foundation again under the prospects of small business right across Australia, including in rural and regional areas. And there is no doubt too that tax reform has built on those measures and that we have a proud story to tell, unlike the ALP, which plainly says that it does not care about small business.

If you simply take one aspect of rural small business—that is, the farm sector—it could well be the case that interest rate reductions are saving farmers at least $1 billion a year. If you contrast interest rates now with what they were, say, a decade ago under Labor, that would probably be closer to $2 billion a year—just for the farm sector. Our export sector, which is what rural and regional Australia is about, now pays internationally competitive interest rates—not interest rates two or three times what comparable businesses in other countries pay. That gives us a foundation stone upon which small business can prosper and grow.

Tax reform has unquestionably helped as well. For the first time that I can remember, Australia is back in a paddock where we have not been for a long time: we are actually exporting more than we are importing. Our terms of trade have moved in a positive direction for the first time that many of us can remember as well—the result of a lot of very hard work and a lot of very substantial reform. In addition to that, I think the Treasurer has already referred to the $3.5 billion of taxes that has come off exports. That is unquestionably—and small business and rural industries, particularly, need to be reminded of this—a major contribution that has flowed from reform of the tax system.

The simplified tax system starts from 1 July so that small businesses can do their tax accounting on a cash basis, with simplified depreciation and trading stock rules. As the Prime Minister has mentioned, the company tax rate comes down then, the financial institutions duty—a subject of great interest on the other side—goes and stamp duty on shares transactions also goes, which in our country now with, I think, between five and six million shareholders is welcome reform as well. The reduction of around $3,200 on a new business car, announced in the budget, is also worth a considerable amount to small business. Then there are the capital gains tax reforms of 1999.

The Labor Party on the other hand admits that it does not care about small business. The Leader of the Opposition went on record saying this in Perth last year, when he said, `We have never pretended to be a small business party.' We see that reflected of course in the position of the opposition's deputy leader, who plainly has no understanding of the importance of trusts to small businesses and farmers, who use them not for tax avoidance but to manage their assets.

You then come to the issue of industrial relations. Nowhere does the citycentric view of what is good for the bush become more clear than when the ALP and the ACTU tell you what is good for you in terms of industrial relations. They have no concept of how small family businesses work out their arrangements with their employees and no concept of how the unfair dismissal law works in rural and regional areas. They continue to support an approach that says that union access to a workplace ought to be guaranteed, even if there is no union membership or no union interest in that workplace; continue to oppose youth wages, making it harder for small businesses to give young people a start in life; and continue to support secondary boycotts so that they can spread industrial disputes to companies that have nothing to do with the original dispute.

These are the policies put together by big city unionists to boost the power and influence of big city unions. They were always a disaster in rural and regional Australia. If they were ever brought back, it would be a case of `back to the future'; back to the days—and we ought to remember this—when Senator Cook came to his senses on something that ought to have been done in rural and regional Australia. He said, `Let's get rid of the tally system.' He recognised that that would be good for the meat export industries in this country. What happened? What happened was that Wally Curran rang up the ACTU. We remember who was in charge of the ACTU in those days—it was the member for Batman. He said, `We can't have this.' The result of course was that the tally system remained in place to the great detriment of jobs in the bush.

Mr O'Keefe —Mr Speaker, I take a point of order under standing order 85, which relates to relevance and tedious repetition—

Mr SPEAKER —The member for Burke will resume his seat.

Mr SPEAKER —The member for Burke will resume his seat or be dealt with under the standing orders. The member for Burke has raised a point of order that I have dismissed out of hand, exacerbated by the fact that I understand that the minister has concluded his answer.