Assistant Treasurer Kelly O’Dwyer has been forced to defend the Coalition’s changes to superannuation while meeting with small business owners in Benalla.
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The minister promised a “frank and fearless” discussion at Rustik Cafe Wine Bar on Tuesday.
She denied the federal government was “punishing” retirees by capping contributions to superannuation at $500,000 and maintaining eligibility laws for business owners.
Indi Liberal candidate Sophie Mirabella said her mother was an example of someone who was rightly ineligible for the age pension because she ran a business.
“The pension is there for everyone, it’s a last resort,” she said.
Ms O’Dwyer had a busy schedule, including being the spokeswoman in Canberra for Tuesday’s backpacker tax announcement in the morning.
The commitment meant she missed the opening of Mrs Mirabella’s Benalla campaign office and was 25 minutes late to the business forum.
But she was all smiles when she did arrive.
The invitation was thrown open to any small business owners to attend.
Ms O’Dwyer also promoted the PaTH program, which would involve young people completing an internship before they could be offered a job, and said it would help lower the Hume region’s 17 per cent unemployment rate.
“The challenge is a small business person takes on all the risk themselves – they risk their home, they risk their capital,” she said.
“But when you bring somebody on board, if you make the wrong choice, it can often have pretty significant impacts.”
Rustik Cafe Wine Bar owner Julie Brown said many youths she talked to about jobs did not actually want to be employed, they wanted to meet welfare requirements.
“They come in just to get their resumes in, just to get their payments,” she said.
“I can’t even fill the floor staff because they don’t want to work weekends, they don’t want to work particular days.”
Ms O’Dwyer told The Border Mail she found small forums helpful to learn about challenges in different communities.
“There’s some people who have obviously found it pretty tough going and no one solution is going to work,” she said.
“I think this notion that government really knows best is a complete furphy – you should create the right economic environment for business to flourish.”
