Mr McMULLAN (4:54 PM) —I rise to support the amendment moved by the shadow Treasurer, the member for Hotham, and the remarks made by my colleague the member for Hunter on the Trade Practices Legislation Amendment Bill 2004. They both spoke so comprehensively that I should be able to make a contribution that supports their position without taking the full quota of time, thus facilitating the business of the parliament. Yesterday we were in the parliament debating a very disappointing set of propositions from the government about assisting small business to cope with the red-tape crisis of the GST and the business activity statement. It was too little too late. It was disappointing and the very least they could do to give themselves a fig leaf to cover the embarrassment of failing to act. Yesterday what we saw was a very small fig leaf and a very large embarrassment.

We have the same situation today. These changes are trumpeted as ostensibly being part of the government's reform agenda to assist small business. But the government have been slow to act. They have acted without commitment. They have left the small business community understandably disappointed. It is a minimalist approach. The minimalist movement in art had a lot to recommend it, but, as a way of reforming the Trade Practices Act and acting in defence of small business, it is a terribly disappointing approach. You wonder why, because, in the normal course, the government have seen the small business community as their core constituency. They have trumpeted their concern for it. They have campaigned to it and sold their message to it. Yet, when the small business community comes to them for support, the government are missing in action.

Why is that? It is because, for the first time, it has become clear that the 21st century challenge for government in assisting small business is in assisting small business to cope with unfair competition from big business. Suddenly the government have gone to water. The only voice they have listened to with regard to this matter is the Business Council of Australia, as advocates of the big business interest, and it has driven the government back. First, they had an intention of doing absolutely nothing, then they set up the Dawson review with the intention of doing as little as possible and then, when the Senate committee was imposed upon them, they sought to constrain significantly its recommendations. Now they have sought to recommend none of it in this legislation when some of it was possible. They know they have bipartisan support for some of those reforms.

Some of the reforms need consultation with the states. We understand that. They cannot legislate to do those things without that consultation. But they have the support of the states, and they know that, if they wished to, they could expedite that. The act sets a time that has to be set aside for consultation but, if they wanted to change it more quickly and went to consult with the states proactively, they would get support because the states have been calling for those reforms. The only people who will not act are the Howard government. They will not act because it does not reflect the interests of the people they actually see as their primary constituency—that is, big business in Australia. They will not act and small business is understandably disappointed at the government being so slow and so weak and having no serious reform agenda.

Seriously, for the economy as a whole, they are weak on competition policy. Australia needs a new round of productivity boost that comes from enhanced competition. We have had rounds of competition in the past engendered by previous Labor governments in the reduction of tariffs, the opening up of the economy, the floating of the dollar and the liberalisation of the banking system. In the National Competition Policy we blew the winds of competition through the fusty corridors of the Australian economy, which had been ossifying for generations. Now we need another round, and the government are found wanting again. When the current Prime Minister was Treasurer, he failed to implement the necessary competition reforms. As Prime Minister he has done nothing.

Mark Latham, the Leader of the Opposition, has outlined a seven-point plan to deal with the abuse of market power and to amend the Trade Practices Act to allow small businesses to be effectively competitive with their bigger competitors, to have a fair go, to drive reform, innovation and competition and therefore economic success. But this is a government that is absolutely bereft of new ideas. When was the last time this government came forward with an original major idea or reform? I ask this question at forums all around the country: what was the last new idea that the government came forward with? Most people say the GST. Whether that was a major reform or not, and I suspect that history will say it was not, it was six years ago that we went to an election about that idea. It was actually first articulated more than 10 years ago, but it was articulated by the government seven years ago. There has not been a major economic reform in seven years, and there will not be any until there is a change of government.

As the member for Hotham and the member for Hunter have outlined, we do support the Trade Practices Legislation Amendment Bill 2004, because it includes measures to make collective bargaining easier and cheaper for small business, and that should happen. It is overdue. The Dawson report came in so long ago that it is amazing that that has not happened so far. Although all too little and too late, there are measures in the bill which, despite some inadequacies, queried and properly raised by the member for Hunter, will nevertheless provide the only collective bargaining the government is going to allow for small business. So we will support that part of the legislation.

But we do want to see more done. We want to drive the government to meet the cries for help from the small business community. It can do that by supporting the ACCC and by making changes to the Trade Practices Act so it can become an effective, functioning force for competition reform and for enhancing the role of small business. Professor Fels was an outspoken advocate of the need to reform the Trade Practices Act, and the government did nothing. Even the more cautious Mr Samuel, who was Mr Costello's chosen Chairman of the ACCC—and for whose appointment Mr Costello battled so hard—says that the Trade Practices Act is not strong enough to give small business a fair go. But the Treasurer is not listening.

This bill is running way behind the views of the small business constituency, and I find that even more the case—and I see the member for Kennedy in the chamber—in regional Australia. In the small business communities in country towns and regional cities—Nowra, for instance, which I went to not long ago—around Australia and in the smaller capital cities such as Darwin, where I was discussing this recently, we find even more awareness that small business is finding it harder and harder to compete with the growing dominance of a small number of large companies. We have a trend to duopoly in so many areas, and it is making it harder and harder, particularly in smaller towns and the smaller regional cities. It is hard enough in Sydney and Melbourne, but the smaller the city the harder the task is for the small business community. The government is made up of the Liberal Party, which purports to represent small business, and The Nationals, which purports to represent regional interests. Yet regional small business is suffering and the government will not act. It will not act, because those who pull the strings will not let it.

Those aspects of a very strong Senate report that would place small business on a fairer footing have been left out of this bill. My colleagues have outlined this, and I have outlined this in speeches before. I simply reiterate now that we can give a commitment to Australian small business that, if the government changes after the election, the law as it relates to the interests of small business in competition with their larger competitors, suppliers and customers will change so that small business will get the reforms recommended by the majority Senate Economics References Committee report into the role of the Trade Practices Act in protecting small business. We will make those changes. We need another package of reform. This government is incapable of delivering it; we will do so after the next election. It is an inevitable change. It must happen. It needs to happen. The economy needs it, small business needs it, regional Australia needs it, and only a Labor government will deliver it.

My colleagues have spoken about some concerns about the merger provisions. I speak in this debate as the shadow minister for small business. The merger provisions are the area of my colleague the shadow Treasurer, but I have heard his advocacy and share his view that we have serious concerns about that. We do not want to be defenders of the status quo just for the sake of it, so let us have a careful look at this part of the Trade Practices Legislation Amendment Bill. Send it off to the Senate committee but do not hold up the collective bargaining provisions for it. I say to the government: I know we are getting close to the election and there are political stunts about all sorts of legislation, but do not hold up the collective bargaining provisions, do not hold them hostage to concerns about the merger provisions. They should not be in the same legislation—it would be far better if they were not—but, given that they are, let us send off for investigation those parts of the bill that relate to mergers, without delaying the collective bargaining provisions. We will know whose interests the government are serving if they fail to do that.

We in the opposition—the alternative government as we approach this election—have made commitments to more substantial reform. We will deliver that reform, which will drive competition, give small business a chance, make the economy more efficient and therefore generate the wealth we need. Those of us in the Australian Labor Party and in parties of its ilk—its counterparts around the world—know that our commitment to redistribution of wealth will only work if we generate the wealth in the first place. So we want an effective, competitive economy, and we need small business to have a fair chance of succeeding, in order to deliver it.

We participated in the Senate Economics References Committee inquiry into the effectiveness of the Trade Practices Act 1974 in protecting small business. We support all 17 recommendations of that committee. That is the reform that Australia needs. We have been highlighting the problem for ages. We have been campaigning on it for ages, in support of Professor Fels first and in support of Mr Samuel now—and in support of the claims by small business groups all around Australia, who are not traditional supporters of the Labor Party but are looking to the Labor Party for support in delivering reform, because they know that the Howard government will not do so.

We will support these measures as they relate to collective bargaining. If the government will cooperate in sending off the merger provisions—and others referred to by the shadow Treasurer—for committee investigation, we will focus on and support the quick passage of these collective bargaining propositions. I suspect, in the terms outlined by the member for Hunter, that we would like to see stronger ones, but these are all that small business is going to get, so we will support them. We urge the government to allow the procedural matters outlined by the member for Hotham to occur in the Senate so that those parts of the bill that relate to collective bargaining can pass. We give a commitment that, as the Howard government is unable to deliver the reforms that small business need in the Trade Practices Act, an incoming Latham Labor government will deliver those reforms.