Andrew Willcox (Dawson, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing and Sovereign Capability) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Goldstein for raising this important topic. Small businesses aren't just part of our economy; they are the backbone of our economy. They are the beating heart of every main street and every regional town—someone with a dream decides to have a go. They are the bakers opening before dawn, the mechanics working late and the cane farmers handing down the family legacy from one generation to the next. They are the families who back themselves often risking everything, and today that spirit is under threat like never before.

Small and family businesses right across Australia are being hit by a tidal wave of pressure that the government either can't understand or simply refuses to acknowledge. This motions asks the House to confront an uncomfortable truth—small and family businesses are being crushed not by market forces but by government choices. Costs are spiralling. Power bills are sky rocketing. Leases are rising. Insurance is blowing out. Interest rates are pushing many to the brink. Every week I hear the same thing: 'I'm working harder for less, and I don't know how long I can keep it going.' That is not economic management. That is economic neglect.

The reasons are clear. The government's industrial relations changes have replaced flexibility with confusion, fairness with compliance, and replaced opportunity with fear. Business owners are scared of making paperwork mistakes, worried about hiring and terrified of growing because every change seems designed for big unions and big corporates, not the people who actually create the jobs. Labor needs to stop looking after their election cash cows and start looking after real Australians.

Power bills for shops, cafes, small manufacturers and workshops have surged because of this government's reckless energy experiment. Small businesses operate for customers and production timetables, not electricity markets. In regional Australia, where distance adds cost, these increases aren't inconvenient; they are lethal.

Record immigration has made the situation even worse. Labor is bringing in more people that ever, yet small businesses can't hire the skilled workers they desperately need. Businesses in Dawson are constantly telling me workshops can't find mechanics, plumbers and sparkies can't secure skilled trades and medical practices can't hire GPs. Meanwhile, the people we do want—surgeons, dentists, builders—are trapped in visa queues for up to two years. What's worse is that small family businesses can't find unskilled workers to pick fruit, to serve drinks or to deliver pamphlets because the government rolls out the red carpet to refugees, places them on welfare and hoards them in Sydney and Melbourne to build their voter base while mum-and-dad business owners work around the clock to pay their taxes that support these new arrivals.

This isn't leadership. It's bureaucratic chaos, and it's leaving Australians behind. Every new rule, every new layer of red tape, every shift of industrial requirement lands hardest on the smallest operator. A large corporation can hide behind a compliance department. A family business only has itself, its time and its courage. This is why insolvencies are exploding—the highest level in years—in a country that's growing faster than ever. That should terrify everyone who cares about Australia, because small business is not optional. If small businesses collapse, Australia collapses.

Small and family businesses employ nearly half of our workforce, train the majority of apprentices, invest their profits locally, keep regional communities alive and build generational wealth that strengthens families. When a family business closes, we don't just lose a shopfront; we lose the legacy of hard work, sacrifice and Australian ingenuity. What small and family businesses need is simple: lower power bills; a cheaper, better, fairer energy policy; a simple regulation; a visa system that delivers skilled workers they need; a tax system that rewards effort; and, above all, a government that actually backs them. On this side of the House, we stand with small and family business because we understand one simple truth: when a small business wins, Australia wins.

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