In his Budget response, Shorten slammed the government for giving the big end of town “mates rates” with their proposed corporate tax cuts.
“The people of Australia deserve better than this. And a Labor government will deliver better than this,” said Shorten.
The Opposition committed to giving small businesses a tax cut, as well as tax incentives for companies who invest in new equipment, software and other business essentials.
“We can afford to invest in small business, in productivity and growth, because we choose Australian small businesses and Australian jobs over tax giveaways for multinationals, big banks and big business.”
They have vowed to restore Sunday penalty rates and crack down on companies shifting permanent jobs onto labour hire jobs to cut down on employee wages.
In these proposed policies, the Opposition aims to provide enterprise bargaining support for both employees and employers to level the playing field for wage negotiations.
The Opposition leader stated, “There is no excuse for a skills vacancy to last one day longer than it takes to train an Australian to do that job “for more productive workplaces, more profitable enterprises and higher wages”.
He has pledged under a Labor government, to cover upfront fees of 100,000 TAFE places in high priority sectors where employers are short-staffed.
The small business sector responds
Key figures in the Australian small business sector have also responded to the Federal Government's Budget.
Peter Strong, CEO of the Council of Small Business Australia, says that while he’s happy with the Budget overall, the instant asset write-off should be a permanent fixture.
"There was nothing special for small business in there - bar the extension of the instant tax write-off.”
“We’re saying if you're going to do that can you at least index it [and it] probably should be $25,000 these days.”
Small Business Minister Craig Laundy responded to Strong’s comments, saying, “In a perfect world, I would love that to be the case, but the reality is you cut your cloth to fit every 12 months – that’s how budgets work. And we will continue to assess whether or not we can offer it moving forward."
Minister Laundy also stood by the government’s extension for the Pension Work Bonus to give older entrepreneurs more earning power.
"All small and family businesses have to start somewhere; there are 1.1 million small businesses that didn’t make a dollar profit last year, let alone $7,800."
Strong says it’s crucial that older Australians can protect their assets from bad business decisions.
"What we’ve got to make sure with older people is that unscrupulous franchisors don’t use this to take advantage of them and remove their assets, because if your business goes bad, what happens, as a result, is you lose your house. You don’t want to lose your house ever, but especially at 65."
The next House of Representatives sitting week begins Monday 21st May as the government tries to get the full support of the opposition for their measures.
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