Small Business Grants

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (15:04): Apart from land tax assistance, what assistance then has the state government provided to sole traders?

The PRESIDENT: You can answer it if you want, Treasurer, but it's not really from the original answer.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (15:04): We are a very open, accountable, transparent and very helpful government, Mr President.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: It will depend on—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: There is no specific scheme targeting assistance to sole traders. The government's original intention, as it announced, was that we would try to save as many businesses and as many jobs as we could and we have targeted the bulk of the billion dollars to those companies that employ people, which is what the other state governments have done, both Liberal and Labor. There was a requirement for eligibility for the state grant schemes that you actually employ people and we would love to provide assistance to everybody but we are using taxpayers' money.

There is $190 million estimated to go in $10,000 grants and we have targeted that assistance to those businesses and organisations that employ people. In a world where there was unlimited money and we could just give the money to everybody, we could give $10,000 grants to sole traders as well, but Labor and Liberal governments interstate with similar schemes have not done so; we are not doing so either.