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Regardless of what the party actually wants, their recent official policy statements on the matter have called for more smelting, refining etc of minerals to be done in Australia. So taking them at their word they're at least somewhat favourable to the idea these days.
Agreed Labor isn't keen on small business due to the union aspect. The only thing I'm not sure about is how they seemingly lost focus on that in the first place.
At the other end of the spectrum, the Coalition's energy policy is based on sharp fall in industrial energy use which, realistically in practice, means large scale industry shutdowns.
The latter's what's tipped me into the Labor camp for the next election. A plan to wipe out what's left of Australian manufacturing is the last thing we need.
As for small business, I've nothing against it but far too much is just service economy based. It's cafes and the like or it's people going around to homes and doing some menial task like washing the dog or bringing them take away food. There's a place for that to an extent but ultimately it's not bringing one cent into the country from overseas, at the macro level it's consumption not production from a national perspective. Something that's extremely relevant given the state of the AUD and the almost certain future decline of some existing key exports.
Now if that small business is manufacturing product for export well then I'm all for it. Not if it's just more low value added services for locals though - that model's essentially the American one that people there are fed up with and suffice to say Trump didn't win by promising more lawyers or household services, his promise was about physical production.
If policies change then my vote will change and I've voted for both major parties within the past decade. If the Coalition came up with a better plan then I'll vote for it. It needs to be something that brings big $ into Australia though, we're not looking for make work schemes.