Mary Aldred (Monash, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the member for Goldstein with this motion because, like me, the member for Goldstein grew up in a family-run small business. He knows what it's like to see his parents answer phone calls at all times of the night and put their customers and their staff first, before they look after themselves. My parents and his parents had small businesses like 2.6 million other small businesses right across Australia, which represent 44 per cent of our workforce. And that's a really important workforce because, for a lot of young people in our community, particularly in regions like mine, small-business employers represent their first shot at a job. They represent their first opportunity to learn processes, teamwork, feedback and resilience—all of the things that you get to learn in a small business that help set you up for life.

But, right now, it's never been harder to be a small-business person in Australia. The facts really back this up. MYOB, the accounting business, put out a survey in October that showed that energy was the No. 1 challenge that the majority of small-business owners were grappling with, where they've got high costs and unreliability. This federal government is not doing anything to address that.

The next biggest challenge was inflation, which is affecting consumers and families right now, coupled with, of course, interest rates remaining high. That's affecting consumer confidence. It's affecting small businesses and retailers in communities like mine, where this should be a bumper season right now, heading into Christmas. Unfortunately, the economic conditions visited upon us by this federal Labor government are impacting small businesses right across Australia.

ACCI, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, put out a survey just a couple of weeks ago, and that shows that half of small businesses are suffering from high levels of stress because it's so hard to be a small-business owner in the Anthony Albanese Labor government's Australia. It's actually impacting the mental health of a lot of people who run a small business and causing them significant amounts of stress. Together with energy, inflation and the economic environment that we're in, red tape is also significant, with 30 per cent of people surveyed worried that their businesses might be forced to close over the next 12 months.

This government has never met a piece of red tape that it didn't like. There are many examples that I could cite to support this. But, to pick one, the recent Franchising Code of Conduct reforms have lumped on a huge amount of unnecessary red tape for small-business owners. Disclosure documents will now have to be printed out—you're talking about 100 pages to be printed just to be given to prospective franchisees when they're looking at entering into a new business. Now, you don't print out an entire copy of the Corporations Act when delivering a share prospectus, to provide another analogy. But this is just one example of the onerous amount of red tape and regulation that is suffocating many small businesses across Australia.

I now want to give a shout out to a few fantastic small businesses in my electorate. We've got the Waterboy Cafe in Cowes. Their coffee is gold medal-worthy. We've got Froyo in Cowes, which is a new startup. They just opened in Leongatha a few years ago and have now expanded to open a second site in Cowes. We've got Coastal Bulkfoods in Wonthaggi; it's an incredible business. We've got the Fig and the Bay in Corinella. I love grabbing a coffee there. There is Sth Drop in Wonthaggi. Greener Life in Inverloch is an amazing nursery, and I am a huge fan of their work. When times are tough in small business, you cannot underestimate the importance of businesses like Greener Life and people like Monique, who runs that amazing business. We've got Mookah in Inverloch and Warragul, cafes like Lyon & Bair and Number 9 Dream in Leongatha, Leongatha Garden Supplies and the Foster Pharmacy—just to name a few. The coalition backs small business. I back small business. Small business needs a better go from this government.

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