What does the October 2022-23 Budget mean for your business?

The Government is providing $15.1 million to extend the tailored small business mental health and financial counselling programs, NewAccess for Small Business Owners and the Small Business Debt Helpline. These programs have assisted many small businesses through the challenges of COVID-19 and recent natural disasters.

$62.6 million will be available in grants over the next 3 years to support small and medium-sized businesses in improving their energy efficiency and reducing energy use.

These grants will empower small and medium-sized businesses to invest in cost-saving, energy efficient upgrades that will put downward pressure on power bills.

Workplace relations support for small businesses

The Government will work with small business, unions, workers and industry to deliver a simpler, more accessible and fairer workplace relations system. This includes:

• making it easier for small businesses to reach agreements with their employees
• providing bargaining support for small businesses.

Paid domestic and family violence leave

The Government has introduced legislation to provide 10 days of paid domestic and family violence leave and is providing $3.4 million for the Fair Work Ombudsman to provide support and advice to small business on these entitlements.

Paid Parental Leave

An additional two weeks will be added each year from July 2024 to July 2026, increasing the overall length of Paid Parental Leave (PPL) by six weeks.

Gender pay gap

The Government will require large companies to publicly report their gender pay gap to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency to improve transparency and encourage change.

There will also be changes to the Fair Work Act 2009 which will make it easier for women in low-paid sectors to make pay equity claims.

Apprentices

Skills for energy sector

$100 million has been committed to the New Energy Apprenticeships and New Energy Skills programs. The programs will help apprentices gain necessary skills by developing a new mentoring program and providing up to $10,000 for each apprentice in a clean energy role.

Future workforce planning

The Government will establish Jobs and Skills Australia to strengthen the nation's workforce planning, help address workforce shortages and build long-term capacity in priority sectors.

The Government will develop an Australian Skills Guarantee to ensure apprentices have access to the opportunities they need.

Skilled migration

The Government is committed to ensuring Australia has the right skills to support the economy and drive future growth. This includes responsibly using migration to ease current critical skill and labour shortages.

• The permanent Migration Program will be expanded to 195,000 in 2022–23 with more than 90% of new places for skilled migrants and targeted to regional areas.
• Additional funding of $42.2 million will be provided to accelerate visa processing to help reduce the visa backlog and raise awareness of opportunities for high‑skilled migrants in permanent Migration Program.
• Student and secondary training visa holders will have their work restrictions relaxed until 30 June 2023 to allow them to work additional hours in any sector.

The electricity grids will be modernised to help put downward pressure on power prices and support the transformation to a clean energy future. Rewiring the Nation will use $20 billion of low-cost finance to make upgrades to the outdated electricity grid. This will create construction jobs in regional areas.

Driving the Nation Fund

$500 million will be invested into the Driving the Nation Fund to help reduce transport emissions, including electric vehicle charging infrastructure at 117 highway sites and hydrogen highways for key freight routes.

Taxes will be on electric cars to encourage uptake

The $345 million Electric Car Discount will exempt eligible electric cars from fringe benefits tax (FBT) and the 5% import tariff.

Fast and reliable internet and mobile coverage is essential to remain connected, access services and support businesses.

• $2.4 billion will be invested in NBN Co to extend fibre access to 1.5 million more premises, including over 660,000 homes in regional Australia.
• A further $1.2 billion in the Better Connectivity for Regional and Rural Australia Plan will enhance connectivity.

There is $3 billion in the contingency reserve to meet the disaster recovery costs from the flooding events this year. Funding will go towards government payments to individuals and help support state efforts to alleviate the immediate hardship being experienced by communities and businesses.

National Reconstruction Fund

The National Reconstruction Fund will be established to provide $15 billion of capital to transform and strengthen 7 priority industries to support employment growth, drive regional development, support the transition to net zero emissions and help build a future made in Australia.

The National Reconstruction Fund will provide loans, guarantees and equity, partnering with the private sector to unlock further investment.

Construction industry

The Government is bringing states and territories, the Australian Local Government Association, investors, and representatives from the construction sector together under a new national Housing Accord. $350 million will be provided over 5 years, with ongoing availability payments over the longer term, to deliver an additional 10,000 affordable dwellings. States and territories will also support up to an additional 10,000 affordable homes, increasing the dwellings that can be delivered under the Accord to 20,000.

Increasing and safeguarding farm output

$1.2 billion to help Australian farmers realise their goal of increasing annual output to $100 billion by 2030.

There is a growing risks posed by pests and diseases such as foot‑and‑mouth disease, $134.1 million will be invested to bolster Australia's biosecurity system. This includes $46.7 million to enable contact tracing of livestock from paddock to plate across the entire nation. More detector dogs will intercept biosecurity threats coming through mail, cargo and air passengers.