Jerome Laxale (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Anyone who has spent time in or around a small business knows the truth: the pressures are real, the hours are long and the loads on families are heavy. Small-business stress doesn't stay in the shop. It follows owners home. It affects sleep, relationships and, too often, mental health. I know this because, before coming into this place, I ran a small business for 25 years, working in the family business before making the move to federal parliament. I know the stress exists. This reality deserves honesty and respect, and yet here we are debating a motion that takes those real pressures and tries to turn them into a political punchline. We heard some of those political punchlines from the member for Dawson—all fear, no solutions. Small businesses deserve better than these fear campaigns and slogans that the opposition roll out when it comes to small business. They deserve practical support, calm leadership and serious policy, and that is exactly what this government is delivering for small business.

In Bennelong, I speak to small-business owners every week, from cafes in Gladesville navigating high merchant service costs for accepting digital payments to family restaurants in Eastwood juggling staffing to big and small tech companies in Macquarie Park struggling to find trained and skilled workers. None of these businesses I speak to are asking for the political theatre that we're seeing from those opposite. They're asking for certainty, for practical support and for government to have their backs through what is a tough economic cycle. And that's what we're doing. Nearly one million small businesses have now accessed targeted energy bill relief—up to $800 in support—since the last budget. Small businesses around the country have accessed our small business energy efficiency grants, upgrading technology in their business just like the IGA supermarket in Epping, who upgraded their equipment to save 30 per cent on their energy costs, or AustGrade Swim School at Top Ryde, who got new pool covers to trap heat from their swimming pools to save on their energy costs too.

We've got Labor's instant asset write-off giving businesses the confidence to invest and help with their cash flow. Our payment times reforms are making sure small businesses get paid faster and reliably. Our digital and cyber programs are helping small businesses navigate a really tricky policy area with the Small Business Cyber Resilience Service and the Cyber Wardens program as well. Our campaign to end surcharges and to reduce costs for small businesses just for accepting digital payments will deliver tangible savings to small businesses across the country.

Now, if you read this motion, you see that the Liberals want us to believe that small businesses are being abandoned, but the facts are very different. They tell a very different story. There are 2.66 million small businesses operating in Australia today. They contribute nearly $600 billion to our economy and employ over five million Australians. While the opposition wants to pretend that the pandemic, global inflation and geopolitical uncertainty never happened or haven't had an impact, this government has been doing the real work to help small businesses recover and rebuild.

If the opposition were serious about supporting small businesses, they would have been supporting the practical steps of this government or putting up their own solutions themselves. Let's be very clear on their record here. Energy bill relief was opposed by the opposition; tax cuts for 1.5 million sole traders were opposed by the opposition; better payment times were delivered by Labor and ignored for a decade by those opposite; Labor's instant asset write-off a couple of years ago was held up in the Senate for months and months and months, providing uncertainty for businesses across the country; and who knows where they stand on reducing merchant and payments costs for small businesses accepting digital payments. When the opposition claim small businesses have been abandoned, they mean that they've opposed the very measures that this government has put out to support small business—and it won't stop there. We'll continue to have the back of small businesses across the country.

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