Renewable energy and the transition away from fossil fuels are the government's key focus in its assistance to businesses, big and small.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers spoke relatively little about business in a budget speech more preoccupied with household cost-of-living pressures but, when he did, it mainly centred on Australia's role in the zero-emissions economy of the future.
"This budget allocates $4 billion to realising our future as a renewable energy superpower — bringing the government's total investment to more than $40 billion," he said.
"This includes part of our $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund, to support the development of green industries, manufacturing and more.
"And a new Capacity Investment Scheme that will unlock over $10 billion of investment in firmed-up renewable energy projects up and down our east coast."
However, much of the investment is off-balance sheet and does not show up in the budget papers.
For example, the only new spending in this budget for that $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund was $61.4 million to "support the establishment and operation" of it.
"We are investing $2 billion in a new Hydrogen Headstart program, so Australia can be a world leader in producing and exporting hydrogen power," Mr Chalmers said.
"Hydrogen power means Wollongong, Gladstone and Whyalla, can make and export everything from renewable energy to green steel.
"Seizing these kinds of industrial and economic opportunities will be the biggest driver and determinant of our future prosperity."
Although, Budget Paper 2 notes that funding for this program will be held in the Contingency Reserve, effectively the government's spare cash set aside for a rainy day.
Small business electrification and energy assistance
While Mr Chalmers said the government would "back Australian small business", the largesse is much more limited than during the COVID-19 period under the Coalition.
Keeping with the renewables thrust is a new $392.4 million Industry Growth Program intended to support Australian small-to-medium-sized enterprises and startups to commercialise their ideas and grow their operations, with a focus on the areas prioritised by the National Reconstruction Fund, which include renewables and low-emissions technologies.
The headline small business measure, flagged ahead of budget night, is a tax incentive for investment in electrification and energy efficiency, such as more efficient fridges, battery systems, heat pumps and electric heating or cooling.
"Small and medium businesses, with aggregated annual turnover of less than $50 million, will be able to deduct an additional 20 per cent of the cost of eligible depreciating assets that support electrification and more efficient use of energy," the government said in Budget Paper 2.
"Up to $100,000 of total expenditure will be eligible for the Small Business Energy Incentive, with the maximum bonus deduction being $20,000."
The measure is expected to cost the government $310 million, to the benefit of small business operators.
But Barrenjoey economists Jo Masters and Johnathan McMenamin argue it still pales in comparison to some comparable overseas efforts to shift industry towards net zero emissions.
"The energy transition did feature in the budget, although initiatives remain somewhat piecemeal and materially smaller than America's Inflation Reduction Act and the EU's Green Deal," they noted.
Online bookseller Booktopia, which will not be eligible for this scheme because its turnover is too high, is building a new fulfilment centre in Sydney, due to open later this year, and is planning to power it, at least partially, through solar.
The company said government incentives could help it make that energy transition faster.
"We're a large consumer of electricity. We're investing much more in solar, so to be able to provide incentives and help to get there faster is what's important to us," Booktopia chief executive David Nenke told ABC TV's The Business Budget Special program.
"With the economic uncertainty that we're facing, actually having the confidence to invest in the future is important."
The issue is urgent for Laundry Warehouse manager Luke Williams, whose laundromat and dry cleaning service is very energy-intensive.
"The biggest costs are energy and gas prices. The more people using the laundromat, the more energy we use, so the fact that the rates are increasing is very alarming to us," he said.
"Our dryers in particular are using gas and they're busiest during the winter time. So, the fact that the gas rates are increasing now — it's not the best time for us."
While encouraging small businesses to move away from gas, the government is also aiming to assist with energy bills.
Small businesses will join pensioners and other welfare and family tax benefit recipients in receiving a share of $1.5 billion in bill relief over the next two years.
Tax breaks for small business
Firms with a turnover of less than $10 million a year can also access an instant tax write-off for any assets purchased valued up to $20,000 each, with no limit on how many assets they can buy.
This instant write-off will be available for assets first used, or installed ready for use, between July 1, 2023 and June 30, 2024.
While the government has extended the instant asset write-off, it is a big reduction from the $150,000 asset value limit and $500 million turnover eligibility threshold for the instant asset write-off when COVID first struck in 2020-21.
"It will be less about utes and more about smaller investments in electronics and small-scale machinery and tools," noted Barrenjoey's economists.
Stephen Anthony from consultancy Macroeconomics said it was necessary to rein in the large costs of the previous program.
"It replaces a more generous set of COVID-era incentives which were more open-ended and applied to a far larger range of Australian businesses that all expire on June 30, 2023," he told ABC News in the budget lock-up.
"This tightening of incentives may lead to a slowdown in aggregate business capex [capital expenditure] for some period."
There is an amnesty for small businesses with a turnover below $10 million a year that have fallen behind on their taxes.
If a firm's tax bill was due between December 1, 2019 and February 29, 2022 and it has not yet paid it, the ATO will not issue a fine as long as the taxes are lodged by the end of this year.
The government is also offering a cashflow lifeline to many small and medium businesses that use a statutory formula to determine the monthly or quarterly income tax and GST instalments they pay to the Tax Office.
The formula meant their instalments would have increased 12 per cent this year due to surging inflation, putting many businesses in financial hardship, or even at risk of insolvency, but the government will legislate to halve that rate for the 2023-24 financial year to 6 per cent.
Tax crackdowns loom
But while the government is offering businesses some leeway with their taxes, it is doubling down on efforts to limit tax avoidance and minimisation.
Business operators can expect increased Tax Office scrutiny of their GST returns, with the ATO receiving almost $600 million in extra resourcing over four years to "continue a range of activities that promote GST compliance".
The measure is expected to increase tax receipts for the government by $3.8 billion over that period, a pretty handy return on investment.
Some multinational big businesses with global revenues of at least 750 million euros (about $1.2 billion) will also be subject to a 15 per cent minimum global and domestic tax rate, in line with international moves to clamp down on corporate tax minimisation.
"A global minimum corporate tax rate of 15 per cent prevents a 'race to the bottom' on corporate tax rates, and protects our corporate tax base," noted Budget Paper 2.
"The global minimum tax rules would allow Australia to apply a top-up tax on a resident multinational parent or subsidiary company where the group's income is taxed below 15 per cent overseas."
That measure is expected to net a modest return of $370 million over the five years from 2022-23.
'Restrain and repair' without 'serious reform'
The general consensus from the economists who joined the ABC in the budget lock-up was that the package is responsible given the current economic circumstances, but lacks some ambition to address longer-term problems.
"The treasurer has missed an opportunity to start a crucial conversation on how we are going to kickstart our languishing productivity growth, after downgrading his expectations of annual productivity growth in the last budget from 1.5 per cent to 1.2 per cent," said Lachlan Vass from economic think tank e61.
"Productivity growth is the driver of long-term economic prosperity, including through wages, however it has been slowing for decades now with no clear plan on how we plan to revive it."
Productivity measures the quantity of goods and services produced with a given amount of inputs, with labour productivity — output per hour worked — a key measure that has stalled recently.
Barrenjoey's team of Jo Masters and Johnathan McMenamin agreed.
"The treasurer largely delivered relief, restraint and repair but this budget missed the opportunity for serious reform to tackle Australia's productivity challenge and fell short compared to global peers in support for the energy transition," they wrote.
"The budget did not deliver any new, material measures to drive productivity growth in the economy.
"Indeed, productivity was not mentioned in the budget speech."
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