Ben Small (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As I was saying, it seems like the only fitting way to begin my first speech to the House, some three years after leaving the Senate. But, as most members of the House would probably admit in a quiet moment, we don't always pay much attention to what goes on in the other place, making it quite appropriate for me to reintroduce myself all over again now I'm standing here on the green carpet.

Politics is a contact sport, and, in making the decision to campaign for a return to Canberra, many people asked me why I wanted to join the fray once more. Aside from feeling like I might just be the right amount of mad for this business, I do feel like the Australians that I feel compelled to stand up and fight for need champions now as much as they ever have.

Some 15 years ago I was on duty as a volunteer ambulance officer in Bunbury when my partner and I were dispatched to transfer a dying cancer patient from home to the palliative unit at the local hospital. It wasn't one of the countless lights-and-sirens adrenaline-pumping medical emergencies that I was tasked with in my time in green, but little did I know that one of the more profound experiences of my life would take place in the next hour. Arriving at the house, we discovered that the patient was from a large migrant Italian family, so we'll call him Giuseppe. He was in a bedroom by himself at the back of the house. Lumbering down a long corridor with heavy bags of medical equipment, I bowled into the darkened room and was frankly shocked to find a shadow of a man lying on the bed. Keeping my game face on, despite the relatively confronting scene, I breezily introduced myself and informed Giuseppe that we were going to whizz him onto our stretcher and then pop him up to the hospital, at which point the emaciated figure said quietly, 'No, you won't.' Trying to hide my surprise, I inquired as to how Giuseppe fancied getting to hospital if it wasn't with our help. He said: 'Son, I came to this country before you were born. I built this house myself and I have spent 25 years here raising my family. So I will walk out of this place for the last time.' For what seemed an eternity—and was, in fact, something like 45 agonising minutes—this incredibly frail figure slowly hauled himself out of bed and then dragged himself down that corridor, using only the wall for support, one foot in front of the other in front of the other. Giuseppe collapsed on the front porch, having walked out of his house for the very last time.

I recount this story to the House, as I did to the Senate, for a simple reason. Giuseppe's story, in aggregate, has made our nation what it is today. So we stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us: those who weren't afraid to work hard, take risks, care for their families and embrace their communities, and who were resilient in the face of adversities that my generation can barely comprehend. These are the people that I have come to this place to fight for: those Australians who are prepared to have a little less today so that their kids might have a little more tomorrow; those Australians who put it all on the line to start a business to create something and to provide opportunities to others; those Australians who are optimistic that their hard work will be rewarded but stoic when it doesn't quite pan out, getting straight back up off the mat to have another go; those Australians who, without second thought or notion of personal gain, pull on a uniform and volunteer to serve our fellow countrymen in whatever their hour of need; and those Australians who would sooner join a committee, become the secretary or roll up their sleeves at a busy bee than see the death of yet another community organisation. These are my people, and I am lucky enough to stand in this House representing a corner of Australia where they abound. My predecessors Nola Marino and Geoff Prosser typified the best of those Australians, and I pay tribute to their decades of service in this place.

Loss has forced me to look at life a little differently from perhaps how I once did. I've experienced loss in political terms, so my place will never be with Teddy Roosevelt's 'cold and timid souls' who know 'neither victory nor defeat', as my 18 months in the Senate was just long enough to see how government could work for Australians but so often doesn't. More profoundly, though, the sudden death of my younger sister at the age of just 30 has taken me years to process fully. I've seen so many grieving families on their worst days, but, on mine, seeing my mum holding my dead sister's babies in her arms is an image seared in my mind.

For me, this perspective anchors the political struggles that play out each day in this building against what really matters in life, especially the value of those incredible people who share our journey in life and to whom in our busy lives we don't often pay enough care and attention. I couldn't possibly rise in the House today without acknowledging the people that have supported me, shaped me and changed me through the many chapters of my story so far. You all know who you are, and I want you to know how much you mean to me even if I don't say it anywhere near often enough.

Today, Australia is brought to you by the word 'can't'. You can't do it, and you can't say it. Almost every business has input costs associated with its people, the power it uses and, of course, compliance. We want highly paid employees in this country, but business is drowning in stifling red tape and regulation while also being crippled by higher and higher energy prices. We are slowly sleepwalking as a country into decline, as investment capital flees our shores whilst we become less and less competitive, with lower and lower productivity. Yet I see limitless potential for an Australia that is bolder, braver and more bountiful as a nation, and I am convinced that deep within our communities is the pride and passion to achieve more for our country and for each Australian to achieve their potential, to maintain a safety net for those deserving a hand up, and to again become a country of 'can'.

In realising such a vision, I hold one thing to be self-evident, and that's that, to change the Australia of tomorrow, we must first understand the Australia of today and accept the Australia of yesterday—as it is, as it was and not how we might have wanted it to be. The more that we obsess over symbolism as a way to alter the past, the less that is said about changing lives in Australia today and the more deafening is the silence about affording all Australians greater opportunity tomorrow.

Matters of employment are of great personal interest to me, not only as a compassionate person who believes in the dignity of work but also as a small-business owner who has had direct experience of hiring hardworking Australians and seeing firsthand both the social and economic benefits that work provides. The false caricature of aristocratic bosses rapaciously exploiting the downtrodden, the vulnerable and the weak in the relentless pursuit of ill-gotten gains is, quite frankly, centuries out of date because such a view denies a fundamental premise of modern Australia, and that's that most Aussies are fair minded and hardworking, whether they be employees or employers.

Like millions of Australians, I had a dream of building my own small business, which grew to employ more than 30 people, including a number who were registered with a disability services agency. I know what it means when we speak of the best form of welfare being a job, and I am particularly proud that one of my former workers has even gone on to start his own small business, which continues to grow today. With almost one in two employees in Australia working in a small business of fewer than 20 staff, most bosses are in fact tradies, restaurateurs, retailers or farmers, working side by side day after day, starting early and staying late. These are the relationships that have built modern Australia.

Businesses in a modern economy have their interests best served by engaged, agile, freethinking and committed employees. Those same staff benefit in term from the superior business performance of an organisation that has the flexibility to change, adapt, trade and prosper. To me, the idea that we need more government red tape between an employer and an employee too often stops people hiring at all, whereas simplicity, certainty and flexibility create opportunity for all Australians.

Every dollar we take off a person or a business reduces the incentive to strive for all, and we must remember that the taxpayer is not an imaginary money tree. Taxpayers are real people, and I particularly shudder at the thought of taking money from a tradie, nurse or teacher and giving it to for-profit companies in the name of some fashionable cause. Whenever we speak of subsidy, commission, plan or initiative in this place, we've got to have the courage to look those tradies, teachers and nurses in the eye and explain why we're taking more of the money that they've earned for themselves and their families. Those hardworking Australians don't live on Twitter, I don't think they always read the paper and they almost certainly aren't members of a political party. They've never marched through the streets of a city with superglue and snorkels. But they do value honesty in political leadership, and they quietly nod their heads in the lounge room when a politician on TV actually talks some sense.

So I'm convinced that political leadership at its best is capable of making the tough decisions whilst carrying the day with reasoned, rational and respectful argument. Australians are no longer listening to political leaders who simply parrot back popular sentiment to the public at large. Indeed, many are yearning for leaders who will take a stance, even where it is a stance with which they disagree. Australians, especially in regional electorates like mine, are crying out for leadership that will truly lift our country and again enliven our communities. They don't send us here to simply argue over the latest way to dole out more and more borrowed money, adding to a debt that will be paid by our children and our grandchildren.

Nobody seems inclined to remind Australians that, just as our forebears learned, we simply cannot turn to government to solve all of our problems, and I hope to lend my voice to this timeless principle. Government shouldn't compete with an efficient and wealth-creating private sector or pick winners with taxpayer money, because it isn't fair that a business should have to compete against a government backed entity that faces no pressure to be profitable and no risk of bankruptcy and is backed by your tax dollar. So government must enable private enterprise, not shackle it, because it is business, small and large, that pays wages and generates wealth in this country. It is business that creates real jobs. Fundamentally, that is why it is an imperative for government to create the right conditions for business to grow, employ and prosper and why we must enhance personal responsibility, reward for effort and the incentive to strive in the Australian economy.

I started my professional career on the deck of an oil tanker, becoming a ship's captain by trade. I followed an icebreaker from the Russian port of Murmansk right over through the pack ice of the White Sea; felt more than a faint terror at the site of breaking waves higher than five-storey buildings in the North Atlantic; and toiled in the searing heat of the Arabian Gulf. Having worked in and with many countries around the world, I've seen the full spectrum of political-economic control and its impacts on the lived experience of ordinary people under those regimes. That has given me a deep appreciation of why Australia is a successful as it is.

A significant part of my career has been in the energy industry, and accordingly I am very cognisant of the fact that energy affects all aspects of life. Households know too well the apprehension of opening a power bill after a hot summer, but less widely understood is the impact of energy prices on business—both the businesses that exist today and the businesses that can exist tomorrow. From the local vegetable farmer I've met who is today considering selling up the family farm because his energy bills are sending them broke to the possibilities for tomorrow unlocked by energy-intense artificial intelligence, our prosperity as a nation depends on affordable and reliable energy.

I believe that, to deliver good government, we should appeal to the pride of Australians and not just to their wallets. We should promise only the dignity of hard work and not the spoils of hard work done by others. Every time the bells ring in this place, opportunity and incentive can be crushed by regulation, restriction or red tape, and we are the only guardians against that. Having bold policy ambition is easy, and yet delivering meaningful change is a different matter altogether. But I will strive never to mistake activity for actual progress towards real outcomes.

To represent my special part of Australia in this place is a deep honour and one that I do not take for granted. My great-grandfather was a 10th Light Horse man who was granted the family's first dairy farm near Boyanup for his service in World War I. My mother, who is here today, grew up on the farm next door, which remains in the family today, and so it is particularly special to represent a region so indelibly linked to my family's history, as well as where I grew up, went to school, messed around in boats as a Sea Scout, started my first business, bought my first property and volunteered as an ambo.

Even in this era of outrage, I still think there's room in our political discourse for a bit of the humour that has long characterised the Australian temperament and is still the quality for which our best remembered parliamentarians on all sides are most often recalled. It might get me into trouble occasionally, but at least nobody will say I'm a bore. Like Giuseppe, when I walk out of this place for the last time, I want to be standing tall with a deep sense of pride and satisfaction that in some small way our nation is at least a little bolder, braver and more bountiful for my contribution here. I thank the House.

Debate adjourned.

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