QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Ms COLLINS (Franklin—Minister for Small Business and Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) (14:44): I thank the member opposite for her question. What I would say to the member opposite is that, as the Treasurer has suggested, the instant asset write-off for this financial year is $20,000, and, of course, those opposite have been playing around with this, as they did last year with the instant asset write-off.

Last financial year, it only passed parliament in the last week of the financial year. Of course, the legislation has been in the parliament now for eight months, and those opposite continue to say that they're not going to support it in its current form. But it is, of course, just one part of the assistance that we are providing for small business.

We know that they didn't support the energy bill relief— The SPEAKER: The minister will pause. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition is going to raise her point of order. Ms Ley: It's on relevance.

The question was about whether there was provision in the budget for a $20,000 ongoing instant asset write-off. The SPEAKER: The minister was asked a detailed— Dr Chalmers interjecting— The SPEAKER: Order! The Treasurer is not helping.

The deputy leader did ask the minister. She has been relevant. She is straying into other territory, so I'll ask her to return to the question she was asked about.

She wasn't asked about alternative policies or anything else that the opposition had or had not supported. So I'll just ask her to be relevant to the question. Ms COLLINS: As the member opposite would know, it's around $290 million of support for small businesses, and, of course, it was in the budget and is part of our budget statement—over $2 billion that we have provided to small businesses over our term.