Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1)      condemns the Government for presiding over the insolvency of 41,749 small businesses since being elected;

(2)      notes that:

(a)         2025 was the worst calendar year for business insolvencies since records began in 1999, with more than 14,649 businesses collapsing; and

(b)         this Prime Minister now has the worst record of any Prime Minister for business insolvencies with an average of 2,938 businesses going under each quarter;

(3)      further condemns the Government for its failure to recognise the scale of the small business crisis and its lack of urgency in responding to record insolvencies;

(4)      acknowledges that behind every insolvency statistic is a family, an employee and a local community bearing the cost of the Government's policy failures; and

(5)      calls on the Minister for Small Business to urgently review the Government's policy settings that are focused on increasing costs, complexity and uncertainty for small and family businesses.

Small business, family business, sole traders and the self-employed are the backbone of the Australian economy. They're more than just that, though. They are the people who stand up and back themselves to be able to get ahead to support themselves and their families. They are the employers of the nation. They are the people who take risks and who should enjoy the reward and responsibility that comes with those risks. But we know very well that things are not alright in the land of small business. Under the Albanese government, we have seen the highest number of small business insolvencies on record. We have seen 41,000 small businesses go insolvent under the Albanese government. Last year, we had the highest number of small business insolvencies in Australia's history on record. Never have more small businesses collapsed than under this government, and it's pretty clear the reason why.

We have a cost of small business crisis in this country. We've had recent data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics which clearly shows that, as a consequence of government spending, inflation is out of control. So many small businesses rely on loans to be able to manage their liquidity or to buy assets, and interest rates are going up. A lot of them depend on non-bank lenders, so they pay a higher rate because they have a lower level of security; therefore, they are doubly impacted every time inflation persists and interest rates go up. But it's not just that they deal with the consequences of state taxes. Increasingly, state taxes are indexed against inflation. So when inflation goes up, their tax bill goes up as well—in addition to the problems of industrial relations, inflation that this government has legislated. And make no mistake, this government has put in a series of measures over the past three years which are still going through our industrial relations landscape, which are making it more expensive, more complex and harder to employ Australians. So if you've got a growing small business, you'll be finding it harder to employ the people you need to be successful and you'll have to pay a higher price. And every single one of these costs is not picked up by some small business owner; it has to be passed on to the consumer. And while large businesses enjoy the benefits of scale and can defray these costs across millions of items, small businesses get exposed at the pinch point of the Australian economy, and they're the ones most likely to feel the consequences and, tragically, as we know, have collapsed.

Now, when we confronted the minister about this only last week in the parliament, she said that maybe those businesses were 'dodgy'. That is the level of empathy from this government towards people who have lost their livelihoods—you're a bit 'dodgy'. That's the attitude of the Albanese government and the Minister for Small Business—no empathy, no concern. But what they did want to do was cover their tracks, because once she was caught out with her interjection in accusing businesses that had collapsed of being 'dodgy', she gave the middle finger, frankly, to millions of Australians who have backed themselves and who now know they can't rely on their government.

We need to make change in this country because we have, of a program that has been introduced by this government, only one-fifth or thereabouts of the total funding being accessed, because small businesses don't need more bureaucracy; small businesses need a lifeline of support, and they are being choked by the Albanese government because of inflation, interest rates and higher costs. What we need now more than ever are small business, family business, sole traders and the self-employed having the back of their government.

We in this parliament need to stand up for small business, family business, sole traders and the self-employed and back them in because they are the employers of the nation. We need to stand with small businesses and stand up for their right to be successful and to prosper. They have a right to their profitability and we need to encourage them to pursue it, because the next generation of Australians are going to grow their wealth and their economic opportunity by backing themselves. The consequence, if we do that, will be a thriving economy made up of those people who chance their hand, take a risk and back themselves. The consequence if we don't do that is what we are living with right now: rising costs, businesses collapsing—and, with them, private jobs—and a private-sector employment crisis.

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