Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Sometimes you feel like you're in a different universe in this place. It's almost like that global pandemic called COVID didn't exist and didn't shut down the world and contribute significantly to and been a primary factor of the skills shortage that we face. It's almost like it was all the coalition, if you listen to the member for Bennelong. Those opposite are very good at selectively quoting statistics and selectively talking about things. We saw it last week in this House in the ministerial statement on the economy. The Treasurer stood at the dispatch box and told all Australians and everyone in the House how lucky they are, how great the economy is going and that we've never had it better. In fact I'll use his own words. He said:

This is the soft landing that we have been planning for and preparing for …

So the Treasurer is very happy to claim success. I want to commend the member for Forde, because this motion is important. It gives another example of the reality that Australians are facing compared to the spin of those opposite, particularly the Treasurer, who keeps patting himself on the back for the wonderful job that he is supposedly doing in the Australian economy. The problem with that is that every person I speak to in my community, whether they are business owners or employees, families or community groups, are struggling.

To show the disconnect, two weeks ago I was talking to two food bank community organisations, two completely separate groups, and they both talked about the working poor that they are looking after at the moment. One of those organisations is up 400 per cent, yet we have to listen to the Treasurer tell us that this is what he was planning for and that the Australian economy as we feel it today is a success—talk about disconnect!

Another disconnect is when we look at insolvencies, because we've seen the highest number of business insolvencies in a financial year—11,053 in the financial year 2023-24—under this government. The worst quarter of business insolvencies on record was 3,331 in the September quarter of 2024. These are the challenges that we face. More businesses are having to become insolvent because of the challenges they face. When we look at the October numbers, the most recent numbers, and we get to construction, 353 construction businesses have become insolvent. In my home state of Victoria, it is 106 businesses. In hospitality, 224 businesses have become insolvent. In Victoria, that's 152 businesses. Organisations like hospitality and construction really are the canary in the coalmine when it comes to the economic challenges we face.

When we look at construction and the skills shortages and the insolvency crisis that the member for Forde raised, one of the reasons construction has such a significant impact is that it impacts all the way along that supply chain. When a construction business goes under, it is heartbreaking for those people that have paid a deposit to the builder, wanting to get their house built. But, when a construction business, particularly a builder, declares bankruptcy or goes insolvent, there is a whole network, a whole ecosystem of subcontractors—electricians, plumbers, labourers—and hardware stores, which provide the raw materials, that are reliant on that business to pay them once it gets paid through the building contract. When a construction business goes insolvent, there is a line of people, a line of communities, that are impacted.

In my electorate of Casey, we are lucky to have the highest number of trades as a percentage of the workforce all through the country. So I've seen the impact firsthand. What has happened, which is continuing to drive costs up and making it hard for businesses to operate, is, instead of working with one, two or maybe three key business partners, an electrician or plumber is now having to try and diversify across more businesses, more project managers, to diversify their risk in case the major builder goes bankrupt. That's adding stress and pressure to those families and to my community. But we have a government that doesn't provide any solutions to those challenges. They just continue to pat themselves on the back and tell the Australian people about the great job they're doing. But no-one in Casey, no-one in our community, is feeling better today than they did 2½ years ago. They've been let down by the Albanese Labor government.

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