Patricia Karvelas (Host): Let's bring in the Minister for Small Business as well as Multicultural Affairs, International Development, Anne Aly, welcome.
Minister Dr Anne Aly: Thank you so much Patricia.
Karvelas: You convened a roundtable of small business on productivity. That's what you've been actually doing this week. How does that feed into the broader economic roundtables, and what are the ideas that have come out that you think are worth pursuing?
Aly: Great. Okay, so this morning I did convene a roundtable on small business right here in Parliament House, as a matter of fact. The outcomes of that I'm hoping to feed into the Treasurer and directly into our reform agenda that the Treasurer is doing. One of the things that I really wanted to draw out in this roundtable this morning, and if I might just start by saying who was represented there. So, we had small businesses from across different sectors, but I also wanted to capture the diversity of small business, not just horizontally across different sectors, but also vertically in terms of small businesses that are sole traders. I had migrant businesses there and representatives of migrant businesses there, and women's enterprises there as well. So, I wanted to capture that diversity. One of the things that I charged them with is we often hear about the things that small business want in terms of productivity in these headline-type of things, like red tape or less regulatory burden. But I really wanted them to get granular on what that means. What does red tape mean, and what does it mean in different contexts? What does it mean in manufacturing versus building? What does it mean for a sole trader versus a business of about 50 people? And that's what I charged them with this morning. And what I'm going to do with all of that, collate all of that. I'm having other small business roundtables, one in my electorate in the coming week, I think, or coming weeks, and collate all of that data and feed it back. Because I do think that when we talk about productivity, we have small business. It's not just the engine of our economy, it's also a really important part of our social fabric as well.
Karvelas: Okay, so they all came in, and I'm guessing they did say to you with some more detail that red tape is a big issue for them, right? There is compliance issues. It's really difficult sometimes to interact with the system to get a business going and maintained.
Aly: And it varies as well. And that's what I was trying to get at is what is it exactly in practical terms? Describe for me what is red tape and how it impacts on your business. So, for businesses that are owned by migrants and 40 per cent of businesses are owned by migrants. Some of that complexity is also - can also be around things like not understanding the system or not having access to an understanding of the system. For smaller businesses, businesses that have less than five people, for example, they might not have access to some of the, what are they called again, subscriptions for the kinds of software that can help them improve productivity in their businesses. But one of the things that we all came on the same page about was that incremental change is not going to really solve the issue, that there also needs to be structural change. And one of the participants said to me, consideration of small business needs to be built in, not bolted on. The way that I describe it is that small business can't be an afterthought. We can't make policy or make legislation and then do a carve-out for small business. We need to have small business at the forefront of our thinking when we're developing policy and legislation.
Karvelas: One of the issues that's consistently raised by small business, and it has been in relation to the Penalty Bill that your government has introduced this week, is that the actual industrial relations system is very difficult for them to navigate. Was that raised with you today?
Aly: It wasn't specifically raised, you know, and again, I asked for really quite specific examples rather than industrial relations bills or this or that. So, it wasn't specifically raised by those who were there. I'm going to review all of the things that were raised, but I also asked them not just to give me problems, I also wanted them to give me solutions as well. And I'd like to focus on the solutions that we can actually take solutions and have a look at what it is that we can do to make not just incremental change, but structural change.
Karvelas: I want to change the topic if we can. I know that you have officially received, you've shared it on your social media, a petition to protect the citizens of Gaza.
Aly: Yes.
Karvelas: There's a lot of petitions that are signed in our country. Ministers don't always officially receive them like this. Walk me through what the petition is and why you decided to do that, and what it means?
Aly: Right, you're absolutely right. There are a lot of petitions across a range of -
Karvelas: And they're not all officially, they're not all received like that.
Aly: But this one is particularly important, Patricia, for a number of reasons. First of all, it was a petition that was started by Doctors Without Borders or Médecins Sans Frontières. I think that's how you say it.
Karvelas: Yep, that's right.
Aly: And it really was about protecting, protecting the citizens of Gaza, but also about humanitarian aid and medical aid and a ceasefire. These are the things that we have as a government, progressively over the last two years been working towards, whether it's through our votes in the United Nations for a ceasefire, whether it's through the recent multilateral actions that we've taken in condemning Israel and calling on Israel, the Israeli government, to allow humanitarian aid in and to protect medical workers and humanitarian aid workers.
Karvelas: It also calls for you to sanction Israel.
Aly: We are not averse to sanctioning Israel, and I know there's a lot of talk about sanction Israel. You need to do that. We are not averse to sanctioning Israel, and that is demonstrated by the fact that we have utilised Magnitsky-style sanctions in sanctioning two members of the Israeli government.
Karvelas: And yesterday Ed Husic joined me and said he thinks it needs to go beyond just the two. He's also actually signed this petition, as you know. Do you think it needs to go beyond those two?
Aly: I think that we have very clearly said in a letter with, I think it's 29 other countries that we are prepared to go further. I want to look at, you know, let's have a look. Sanctions are part of the suite of tools that we have. They are most effective when they are not done unilaterally, when they are done in consult with and in concert with other countries. So, that's where I want to see us doing sanctions. But we are not averse to sanctions. We are not averse to doing more. We've clearly stated that.
Karvelas: And is that why you decided to receive that? Was it a signal to people concerned that you will go further?
Aly: No, I think we already signaled that we would go further in the letter that we signed earlier in the week. This was, I think, an incredibly important one because it aligns with everything that we have already been asking for and what we continue to push for, which is a ceasefire, protection of civilians and protection of humanitarian aid workers and the unfettered input and distribution of aid.
Karvelas: Minister, you're the Minister for Multicultural Affairs. The big report on antisemitism has been provided to the government. You're now waiting for the one on Islamophobia. Will you be involved in considering both of them together and officially responding in terms of what you'll do?
Aly: Yes, I will. Let me make it clear that we have already done quite a bit on racism generally. Australia has some pretty strong laws on racism and hate speech specifically. Clearly, we haven't done enough. Clearly, we have rising antisemitism and rising islamophobia, which is why we have the two envoys, both of whom have conducted significant consultations with their respective communities and who are providing the government with a plan of work, of their work. The antisemitism envoy's plan for her work has been delivered to us. I'm looking forward to shortly receiving the one from the Islamophobia. But the one thing that I do want to point out is that, you know, looking at the findings of the Islamophobia envoy's consultations and having worked myself in anti-racism for many, many years, the impact of racism, no matter where it comes from, impact and bigotry, no matter where it comes from, the impact is the same, right. And sometimes, often, the tools to combat it are the same as well.
Karvelas: Thank you so much, Minister.
Aly: Thank you, Patricia.