Labor has raised concerns the government’s new small business roadshow program has so far overwhelmingly visited Coalition-held seats, suggesting Coalition voters are being rewarded with better access to services.
Of the first 30-odd roadshow events held since the program started on 20 February, at least 27 were in Liberal or National seats, just two in Labor seats and one in Indi, which is held by an independent, according to a Labor analysis of small business minister Michael McCormack’s media releases and other public statements.
According to the releases, checked by Guardian Australia, McCormack was accompanied by local Liberal and National MPs or senators, even when he attended Cathy McGowan’s seat of Indi and Labor-held seats Parramatta and Greenway.
Coalition electorates visited included the marginal seats La Trobe, Corangamite, Bonner, Petrie, Bowman, Gilmore, Hinkler, Forde and Fisher.
The roadshows are used to get feedback from small business but also to spruik government policy. In one event listing for a roadshow forum on 6 April, the Corangamite MP, Sarah Henderson, boasted of the government’s small business tax cuts for 16,920 local businesses.
Henderson also accused Labor of having “no plan for job creation and no play for growing the economy”, alongside an invitation to local business owners to meet her and McCormack at the official event.
McCormack attends the events with senior staff from agencies including the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman and the Australian Tax Office.
At Senate estimates on Tuesday, the Treasury’s small business division head, Patrick Boneham, said the roadshow events were organised by the small business minister’s office and not the Treasury.
He said he believed government agencies paid their own way to attend and McCormack would attend using his budget.
The shadow small business minister, Katy Gallagher, asked if it was a problem that event invitations criticised Labor policy and public servants attended in support.
The finance minister, Mathias Cormann, rejected her suggestion the events were political, saying it was “not unusual” that government MPs would attend what are “government policy forums”.
“It’s not unusual [for them] to express views. The government is obviously focused on developing … and promoting government policy.”
Cormann noted that the Labor MPs Rob Mitchell, Jacinta Collins and David Feeney had expressed interest in forums. Gallagher questioned whether that had occurred after Labor raised the issue at Senate estimates last week.
Gallagher told Guardian Australia “the idea of a small business roadshow program is a good one but the fact that the forums have been held almost exclusively in Liberal or National party electorates, supported by taxpayers’ funds and with the attendance of public servants is deeply concerning”.
“Ministers must act with integrity at all times, particularly when it comes to the use of public money and the public service,” she said. “The small business roadshow should be reaching out to all small businesses across the country, not just reaching out to those who voted for a Liberal or National MP in 2016.”
A spokesman for McCormack said the minister had started the roadshows in regional areas because they “often have not had the same access to different government agencies as small businesses in the cities do”.
“Approximately 20 visits have been to regional areas, which are predominately represented by Liberal and National members of parliament,” he said. “The remaining visits were scheduled around speeches, official engagements, logistics or availability.”
The spokesman said that the minister “is visiting as many communities as possible” because “each small business and every region deserves equal access to policy-makers and support services”.
He said there were “a number of pre-existing plans in place to visit Labor, Green and independent seats, subject to schedules and availability”.
