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Parliamentary Questions


Question Without Notice No. 254 asked in the Legislative Assembly on 17 June 2021 by Mr P.J. Rundle

Parliament: 41 Session: 1

SMALL BUSINESS — PAYROLL TAX

254. Mr P.J. RUNDLE to the Treasurer:

I have a supplementary question. Can the Treasurer please confirm that the small business community can expect no further relief from this state government's massive surplus?

Mr M. McGOWAN replied:

What I can tell the small business community of Western Australia is that we have the strongest economy in the country. According to Standard and Poor's, we have one of the strongest and best-managed set of finances in the world—in fact, the best, according to Standard and Poor's. According to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Western Australia the other day, because of this state government, consumer confidence in Western Australia is the highest in Australia. Our retail and hospitality figures are the strongest in history. Our export industries are the strongest ever. We are the only state that did not go into recession because of the management of this state government. We have interstate population growth—that is, the number of people moving from the east to Western Australia is growing. When members opposite were in office, it was going down. We actually have people moving here. What did we do? We said to the mining industry, ''Move your FIFOs over here.'' What did the Liberals and Nationals say? They said, ''That's a bad idea.'' Would members opposite rather those incomes stay in the east? We have done all these things to get the state back on track. We have secured more commonwealth money for our projects than ever before. And we cut payroll tax. Members opposite might recall that we gave a rebate on payroll tax over COVID—they probably do not; I doubt they would recall that! But we did provide a rebate on payroll tax to businesses with payrolls, from recollection, of up to around $4 million. We did all those things. We reimbursed licence fees. We did all those things over this period.

All that seems to have passed the member for Roe by. Instead, he comes and spies on my press conferences. I might add, Madam Speaker, they go live on Facebook, just so members opposite know! They can actually watch the press conferences. There is this thing called Facebook, member for Roe. He can go and watch them. He does not have to show up and stand in the crowd with a pair of sunglasses on pretending he is a journalist with some other National Party staffer. It is bad form. He should not do it, but if he is going to continue to do it, I have a lot of people that I can send to his press conferences.