Tonight is a great celebration of enterprise and entrepreneurs.
It's a celebration of great Australian achievement.
Of innovation, investment and a lot of hard work.
There's around 40 finalists represented here.
Each of them could tell a story of years of hard yakka.
And for each of them there are the family, friends and employees who were there too - supporting their dreams, working through nights and weekends to get an urgent job done.
Then there are the investors, the business partners and the suppliers and customers who all play critical roles in getting a business started and making it a success.
Small business is a vital part of the Australian economy - vital to creating jobs, exports and national prosperity.
And that's why tonight we're celebrating some of our nation's best small and medium size enterprises.
They comprise 96 per cent of all active businesses, employing nearly 4 million people and contributing around one third of GDP.
I know there's many people who romanticise about running a small business.
What I find is that those people who romanticise about small businesses usually aren't running one.
The truth is, running a small business is tough.
I know it from Therese's career and from my own.
So often there's nobody else to pick up the slack.
No-one else to do the extra paperwork, which often becomes a weekend job.
No-one else to rescue things when there's a crisis.
That's why getting a business off the ground is such a great achievement, and it's why we should publicly recognise our outstanding SMEs as we are doing tonight.
The events of recent weeks have been remarkable.
As the IMF has said this week, this is the deepest shock to the global financial system since the Great Depression.
We all know that we're going through a period of exceptional volatility.
There are tough times ahead.
But it's important that Australian businesses keep perspective.
We are not immune to the global downturn.
But the stability of our financial institutions is in good order.
Our banks remain profitable - in fact yesterday, the World Economic Forum released a report on the soundness of banks and Australia was ranked 4th out of 134 nations, ahead of 130 other nations.
Our economy is still growing.
We have a strong budget surplus as a buffer for the future, and to be used to meet the challenges of the future.
And our exports are growing strongly.
If we look to the enormous expanding market of China, the latest forecasts predict growth of 9.4 per cent in 2009.
Further, Chinese leaders have indicated a willingness to lower interest rates to stimulate their domestic economy - an important development for the global outlook.
India is expected to grow by 6.9 per cent in 2009.
The ASEAN economies by 5.7 per cent.
Ours is the fastest growing part of the global economy - by a long shot.
And that means Australian businesses still have many export opportunities.
There's one other development this week that puts a silver lining on an otherwise dark cloud.
And that's the impact of the Australian dollar's depreciation on the competitiveness of our exporters.
There's no question that while the dollar was in the 90s exporting was very, very tough.
With the dollar in the high 60s this week, the outlook has changed.
Australian exporters have a new competitive edge - notwithstanding the weaker growth outlook in the world economy.
The Government I lead is strongly committed to helping Australian businesses succeed on global markets.
We are implementing a comprehensive productivity agenda to turn around the weak productivity growth of recent years.
That agenda comprises the education revolution, a nation-building infrastructure plan, business deregulation through the COAG agenda, supporting business innovation and reform of the taxation system.
This is a long-term agenda but after just ten months in office it's well underway.
We also have a long term vision to make Australia the most Asia-literate country in the western world.
That means equipping the next generation of working Australians with the language, cultural and business skills to help them seize the opportunities of the 21st century, the Asia-Pacific century.
I believe SMEs will be driving the export growth of the future.
Right now, 90 per cent of Australian exporters are either small or medium sized enterprises (SMEs).
Yet only 15 per cent of Australian SMEs are exporters, according to Austrade/Sensis research - suggesting we can do much more.
The Government is committed to helping businesses develop new export markets in Asia and across the world, through our outstanding trade assistance agency, Austrade.
Austrade operates innovative programs across the world and throughout our region.
For example, since the Beijing Olympics where Telstra and Austrade conducted the “Win Business Gold in China” competition, 12 Australian small businesses have successfully built new export contacts.
Tonight I'm pleased to announce a new initiative to build future exports.
Austrade and Telstra will be working together to set up programs for winners and finalists from the Telstra Business Awards and the Telstra Business Womens Awards.
Those programs will help those winners and finalists to develop their export and international business potential.
This is an important initiative.
It ensures that these Awards don't just end with tonight's ceremony or next week's magazine story.
It makes it possible for the Awards to become a stepping stone to global success.
And it makes good sense.
After all, these Awards winners attract the best young businesses in the land.
We should do all we can to help the businesses to expand onto the global stage.
In the tough times that we're facing, I want to reinforce the strength of the Government's commitment to the SME sector.
We are committed to a framework of responsible economic management to help SMEs to thrive and grow.
That is why we delivered a disciplined Budget in May, with a strong surplus as a buffer for the future.
I have mentioned already the importance of our long-term productivity agenda.
In particular, we are pursuing a deregulation agenda to create a seamless national economy.
Over the last decade the deregulation program of the Hawke and Keating Governments that opened up Australia's markets has been reversed by what the Business Council of Australia has described as the "creeping re-regulation of Australian business".
We want to turn that around, and ease the regulatory burden on Australian businesses.
Our reform program includes an unprecedented 27 areas of overlapping and inconsistent regulation across the Commonwealth, States and Territories.
We simply say this:
It's the 21st century.
We've got to stop acting like we're still in the 19th century with nine separate markets and overlapping and inconsistent business laws.
In cooperation with the States and Territories, we are dismantling the barriers to businesses operating seamlessly across State and Territory boundaries.
For example, as a result of the recent COAG meeting, businesses that operate across state boundaries will no longer need to register their business names, and pay separate fees, in each state and territory. They will have to register only once at a central, national registry.
And tradespeople who move from one state to another won't have to apply for and pay for a separate licence in each state.
This will put an end to the economics of the rail-gauge era - where businesses in the 21st century have still been facing the same sort of obstacles in operating across state boundaries that our grandparents faced when catching a train from one state to another.
The Government is also supporting small businesses by funding 36 Business Enterprise Centres located in suburban, rural and regional Australia, at a cost of $42 million.
These centres are providing established and start-up businesses with commercial advice, legal advice on retail and commercial tenancies, advice on compliance obligations, GST bookkeeping, finance and cash-flow management as well as advice on promotion and marketing.
We are removing the constraints on small business expansion through investment in education, skills development and by bringing forward our nation-building infrastructure plan.
We are also investing in innovation.
The recently released report of the Review of Australia's National Innovation System represented the first step in harnessing the potential of innovation and putting it work for the benefit of all Australians.
It made a number of important recommendations aimed at improving the innovative capacity of small business that the Government is considering and will respond to in the near future.
These are all practical steps to supporting the important role of SMEs in our economy.
All these measures come down to the simple aim of creating more innovative, competitive and successful Australian businesses.
Tonight, we celebrate some of the best of those businesses.
To all those businesses who have come this far as finalists tonight: Our warmest congratulations - and all the very best for tonight's announcements.