Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today we find ourselves on the cusp of what should be the happiest of times: the annual festive season, with its celebration of love and harmony and prosperity, a time to pull our families closer, to be thankful and to do good to others. But, tragically, the activities of this Labor government have meant that numerous families will end of the year as they began it, with their hope dimmed and their aspirations crushed. The dual blunt instruments of Labor's economic policy, overtaxing and overregulation, will in too many cases leave little spare cash for Christmas. This should be a time for small business, the lifeblood of our economy, to enjoy rest and recreation and enjoy the fruits of their hard work, but it is difficult to find any gift inside the swathe of government enforced red tape. Why is this federal Labor government so intent on killing our economy? What sort of crazy logic seeks to justify the jettison of the $20 billion surplus down the gurgler to the point of a staggering net debt of $147 billion? It is the biggest debt in Australian history and we, the Australian taxpayers, are now paying almost $20 million a day in interest to service it. In any regular Australian family, the hardworking forgotten families of our nation, that degree of money wasting would be beyond comprehension. It would be beyond the remediation of the world's best and brightest in the financial counselling world.

Let me share with the House some more jaw-dropping figures to chew on over Christmas. Under the Howard government, annual average GDP growth was 3.7 per cent. With Labor recklessly at the wheel since 2007, GDP growth has fallen to just 2.4 per cent. Inflation was just 2.4 per cent in the Howard years, but has now increased to 2.9 per cent under this federal Labor government. Growth in retail turnover has shortened to 4.2 per cent courtesy of Labor. Under the coalition it was significantly higher at 5.7 per cent. Building approvals grew by 14.6 per cent in the last year of the previous coalition government. This Labor government, due to its economic ineptitude, has presided over an extraordinary slippage—a 10.6 per cent decline in building approvals in the past 12 months.

Last week I met, as I have many times before, the human face of Labor's attack on hard-working and individual enterprise as I visited small businesses in my local community with the shadow minister for small business, the Hon. Bruce Billson, the member for Dunkley. These businesses are proud Queenslanders, beacons of hard work and true believers in hope, reward and opportunity. But under this federal Labor government, spirits are flagging. They continue to hope, but so long as Labour lingers they confess to wonder, is it hope against hope? I know a small shop owner in the suburb of Burpengary. How tight will his Christmas be when he is coughing up an extra $1,300 a month in Labor's carbon tax bills? Then there is the tracking and haulage operator from Caboolture, himself pursued relentlessly by the rise in refrigerant cost. Back in Burpengary, increasing overheads and reduced profit margins are cruelling the ambition and lifestyle of a popular coffee shop owner. This local business is desperate to hire more staff, but thanks to Labor's overregulation and inflexibility in the workplace he is too afraid to do so.

Let me be very clear about this: the coalition gets small business. Many of us, before entering politics, have been there. We know that small business is the pulse of a healthy economy, for not only does it perform a vital role in itself, but a prosperous small business reverberates in waves across our society. In short, a crippled small business sector is tantamount to a nation going backwards, not forwards. However, a re-elected coalition government would once again champion small business and drive it to new horizons. We will scrap the carbon tax to reduce the spiralling power costs that small businesses now have to pay without any compensation. We will cut red tape by $1 billion each year and implement a comprehensive deregulation agenda. We will simplify the administration of superannuation reporting, allowing small business to remit compulsory super payments for workers directly to the tax office. The ATO would then be responsible for disbursement to individual superannuation funds. We will establish a genuine root and branch review of competition laws to ensure that small and big business can compete on an equal footing. We will support the rights of independent contractors and family businesses by extending unfair contract protections to small business. We will ease the paperwork burden by moving the administration of the national Paid Parental Leave scheme from small business to the government's Family Assistance Office. We will reduce lawlessness in the workplace by re-establishing the Australian Building and Construction Commission and we will build better infrastructure, with a special emphasis on lessening the bottlenecks on our gridlocked roads and highways.

These initiatives will lift productivity, cut compliance costs and help small business men and women of Australia share in the hope, reward and opportunity of a once-again proudly aspirational nation. A coalition government will aim to double the existing rate of small business growth, adding 30,000 new small businesses every year. We will champion small business to the hilt, because we know that is where people get a start in life, entrepreneurship is fostered and innovation happens. Labor still sees it fit to demoralise this very fabric.

Labor looked the Australian people squarely in the eye and promised there would be no carbon tax. As the countless small business owners and hardworking families across my local community know, there is a carbon tax. Labor vowed in its workplace relations changes that it would not be a cost burden to employers; another deception of the Australian people. Various alterations to modern awards under the Fair Work Act have resulted in some businesses experiencing labour cost hikes of up to 15 per cent. Labor promised there would be a one-in and one-out approach to regulation, but instead we get more dodgy Labor accounting. The reality is that there have 200 regulations in for every one out. That is 20,884 new or amended regulations for the repeal of only 104.

Additionally, Labor's superannuation changes have created a nightmare of paperwork and bureaucratic red tape for small business. This is after it assured voters that it would not be tampering with superannuation arrangements. Ironically, we have seen one concentrated area of focus on small business from the other side of the chamber. In last year's Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, the government handed the Australian Taxation Office an extra $390 million for new compliance activity. How is that for some Christmas cheer? $390 million for the tax office to chase up outstanding income tax lodgements from an already cluttered, confused and often just-scraping-by small business sector. I knew the Labor Party had small business on their mind at some point.

It is little wonder that small business start-ups have dropped by 95 per cent. The number going bankrupt has risen by 48 per cent. Today, there are 11,000 fewer small businesses employing than there were in 2007. As we pause to reflect this Christmas, let us be mindful of Labor's past year and its gift of a concerted attack on hardworking Australians while keeping the coalition's politics of opportunity and aspiration in our sights. For here is where there is light and there is hope, and even more than that, there are practical solutions for the problems facing our nation.

The coalition represent encouragement over subsidy, and offers a hand-up rather than a hand-out. We are for smaller and more efficient government. We fight for lower taxes. We believe the individual's right to choose is paramount. The coalition are about respect for all Australians and respect for their hard earned income. As I said in my first speech in this place:

Governments don't have any money of their own; they only have the people's money, held in trust.

We will not abide by Labor's waste and mismanagement; we will pay-down debt, apply downward pressure on interest rates, wind back the operating costs for small businesses and so ease the costs of living for every Australian. The key to a prosperous economy is to curtail spending and boost productivity.

This Christmas, Australians are readying themselves for an upcoming federal election. They will ultimately face a choice between Labor's bad Santa, who plays a devilish hand with the economy, and the aspirational values and prudent fiscal policies of the coalition. Labor will continue to promise this gift or that gift. The difference is, when the coalition promises, it always delivers.

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a grievance debate, and I have 10 minutes to talk about some of the things that grieve me. I will do that and then pay one some particular attention. There are a number things—many things. They are all local, but they are all state and national as well—no seatbelts for kids on buses; tasers; dental care not being part of Medicare as if our mouths are excised from our body; insurance prices in flood areas where people are costed out and some put in as flood prone by a map and yet they have never had water in their houses and never will; and also the saying that the private sector is more efficient. I have daily tales that can prove that wrong, and it is not a competition. The terms 'boat people' and 'queue jumpers' are terms that just should not exist, but are ones that are bandied around in a very callous way by a lot of people on all sides. There is also the SBS in Kyogle when we had the digital switchover—that is all fine. I have been told through SBS that they are not going to broadcast to Kyogle. I am taking that issue up and complaining about it. Coal seam gas mining companies are in the Northern Rivers where they are clearly not welcome. There is also the issue of lack of safe and affordable abortion. Who could not have been moved by reading about Mrs Savita Halappanavar's death in Ireland. It was in the Sydney Morning Herald on Monday, 19 November. God rest her soul, and I hope she has not died in vain.

That brings me to the state of the beef industry in Australia and particularly the model of representation that the beef industry has. I am going to give that some detailed attention tonight. It is a very local issue for my area, but it is also a state and a national issue. Some members would know of my concern about the model of representation of Australia's beef industry. I observe and believe that the producers—particularly the family producers and smaller producers; there are a lot of them—are not getting the level of representation that they deserve or require. I have spoken about this matter before in this place and the problems of the model. The model was introduced in the nineties at a critical point. It was the producers themselves and the beef industry saying, 'We want self regulation.' That is fine. That is what they have got, but there is a whole lot wrong with it that has not worked to give a voice to the producers.

Both the Cattle Council of Australia, the CCA, and Meat and Livestock Australia, the MLA, are the two peak national bodies. They have been going through the motions of reform this year, and the only outcome I have seen so far is that the Cattle Council of Australia, which is charged with what they call some advisory role or oversight role of the MLA, will now get funding from the MLA to do consultancy. I do not see how this is going to assist the representation of the producers. I will just read some experts from the Cattle Council of Australia's history, from page 1:

The Cattle Council of Australia—the national voice for beef producers—

I wish it was and it should be, but in Canberra it proves that it has not been. All governments know that it has not been the voice that it should be here. They say they are the national voice for beef producers. Ask the local producers what they think of that. I do not want to be unkind, but they laugh when they read that. In their history they talk about on page 4:

Cattle Council was not completely happy with the MLA model determined by then Minister for Primary Industries and Energy, John Anderson, but is working hard to make the new industry arrangements a success. The major advantage of MLA over its predecessors is that producers are now totally in charge of how their levies are spent.

That is not true. They are not in charge of how the levies are spent. The way that the voting model in MLA, which is a company, works means there is no way they could be in charge of that. It goes on:

In the past, other sectors, because they were forced to pay levies, had an equal, and at times dominant, say in outlays and programs.

Then it continues:

Cattle Council has new responsibilities on behalf of beef producers in advising MLA, keeping abreast of its operations and making a major contribution to the proper functioning of the Red Meat Advisory Council …

And it says a number of other things. When you talk with producers and the local producers, they say, 'That's nonsense. That doesn't happen.' They have not seen it. In my observations and my readings—and I have read all the annual reports with CCA, with MLA and with all the other bodies—that has not happened. Those roles have not been fulfilled. It is clear, even the industry itself is saying that it knows it does not have a voice. The reason it does not have a voice is that it does not have a single united voice. Yes, there are some separate issues in different sectors of the beef industry, but there have to be, Mr Deputy Speaker, some issues in common that it comes together on. We know what they are. It can at least have a united voice on those, and say, 'Here are the five key issues facing the Australian beef industry today. This is what they are and this is what we recommend.'

Do we hear it? No, we do not. We hear dead silence. I know there have been a lot of meetings going on lately with CCA and with MLA, but particularly CCA. They had a restructure committee. They had models put up to them, models A, B and C, and really it has come to nought. People are disappointed. Some old hands who have been at it for years said, 'It will come to nought.' Others said, 'No, give them a go. Let them go ahead with it and see what they come up with.' The key issue is that there needs to be a review of the industry organisations and representation. Ideally that needs to come from them. That has been put to them and people are still waiting for them to come up with it. When you hear from smaller producers, what do they say? They talk about prices. They talk about getting effectively the same prices they were getting years ago and then they will detail you some of that. I have read what the MLA have said about that. They say it is to do with the high Australian dollar. Others say differently. Economists say differently. There are different reasons. We need to know. There is not enough information. The model of representation that they have is also one that I do not see a great deal of transparency in. I do not see a great deal of transparency about how the producers' levies are spent in the research and marketing.

One thing the MLA has said is that it has stepped out of politics and will stay purely with marketing and research. Some people say that is a good thing. It still needs to be very active. I note a previous CCA member, Mr Greg Brown, was calling for a review of the industry and he was calling for MLA to have that moved at one of their meetings. But of course it would not happen. My understanding is that the funding agreement with the government and with MLA talks about an audit that can be done. It is time that that audit was done. It is time that something should happen. The least that the MLA could do is have a democratic voting structure. We certainly do not have that there at the moment.

I have a couple of other points that I would like to make. It says here, it is really the last word and it goes to the producers. This is a summation and an amalgam of what some of the producers have said. They have said that essentially there are no material changes in representation and accountability. They have absolutely ignored the proposals put to CCA, and it says, 'Levy paying cattle producers still do not have a voice in the management of their $56 million levy. It would seem CCA has sold its funding problem by securing ongoing consultation fees from MLA.' Then it says, 'Based on what producers said at consultations, it was recommended CCA take control of the levy. It would seem CCA does not want this responsibility.' (Time expired)