The GST implementation has duped everyone - and it's here to stay

In 1996 John Howard promised small business everything except a block of flats in Tasmania. When I said the real plan was to give them a GST he ruled it out and the Canberra journos said "Don't try that hoary old one, Prime Minister". Now we all wear it like a rash.

Small business and its lobbies should remember what the Labor Government did for it. Let me recount a few things:

• A more than doubling of economic growth; from 1.8% on average under Treasurer Howard to an average of 4.2% under Labor. It is, after all, economic growth that really matters to small business, indeed all business.
• Enterprise bargaining.
• The lowest inflation rate underwriting the lowest interest rates in thirty years.
• The removal of the double taxation of dividends with full imputation.
• Removal of the Liberals’ crippling Division 7 tax on undistributed profits, a killer for private companies.
• A cut in Treasurer Howard's 60% top marginal tax rate to 47%
• A cut in Treasurer Howard's 46% company tax rate to 36%.
• Accelerated depreciation.

And a host of other things too numerous to mention

I suspect some small and big-business types might turn the bat on themselves for being so gullible, after they have dealt with our tax-loving Prime Minister.

It is going to be shocking to watch. Just shocking.