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

I'm glad the member for Moreton mentioned the spotlight. Where the spotlight on the debate for small business should rightly be is on the disgraceful statements made in the House of Representatives just last week by the Minister for Small Business who, when confronted with the 41,749 small-business insolvencies that occurred on the watch of the Albanese government simply said, 'Maybe they were dodgy.' That's not a sick joke; that is actually the statement that the Minister for Small Business made in the House of Representatives.

Each one of those 41,749 small-business insolvencies represents the blood, sweat and tears of people—perhaps of a family or perhaps a husband and wife or perhaps a couple of mates—who have decided, in pursuit of the great Australian dream of building something, of creating opportunities for others, to take a risk and ask nothing more than for government to get out of the way and allow them to enjoy some rewards for their efforts. Instead, they have been crushed by the ever-increasing tide of costs due to the Albanese Labor government's failure to control inflation, drowning in the red tape and regulation that restrict the entrepreneurialism that should be unshackled if we want our economy to grow once more.

And so with each one of those 41,749 small businesses that have become insolvent, the dreams of those small-business owners have been extinguished and the Australian economy is poorer as a result. And what do we get? We get lectured by those opposite on the state of our own internal party affairs. We get lectured about how government programs that take money off businesses to recycle it back to a selected few businesses somehow creates conditions for Australian businesses to prosper. In my electorate and across the country, the reality couldn't be further from that. If a government can't get out of the way of small business and debtors, it leaves Australia poorer as a country. Our capacity to pay for those who are vulnerable, for those who deserve a helping hand up in our economy is dependent on continued economic growth. It is not dependent on four in five jobs being dependent on taxpayer money in some respect. It is dependent on a healthy private sector driven by that small-business entrepreneurialism.

This is a relatively new phenomenon for Australia because we have never seen anything like the level of small-business insolvency that is occurring under the Albanese government. There has been a 260 per cent increase in the insolvency rate since Labor was elected in 2022. With those insolvency figures exploding, and each one of them representing the very real dreams of Australians going up in smoke, you would expect the government to take a serious look at what is occurring and why it is that businesses are collapsing left, right and centre. If you took an honest look, as this government should, you would see that costs across the economy are exploding and there is a disproportionate impact on certain sectors, like the construction, hospitality and retail sectors. Indeed, construction and hospitality alone account for some 42 per cent of insolvencies. In the hospitality sector, we're seeing insolvency rise at more than a 50 per cent year-on-year rate. This is ASIC data; this isn't hyperbole from the opposition. Instead of responsible government taking deep action to address this, we're seeing things like the general interest charge levied by the ATO being made non-tax-deductible by the government, a government which is so drunk on spending, so addicted to throwing money out the door on ever bigger government programs, that small businesses who are already facing severe cost challenges are slapped in the face with the interest bills they pay to the ATO no longer being deductible like every other form of interest. It's unfair, it targets those who are having a go in our economy and it is emblematic of this government's approach to small business.

These are businesses—mums and dads, husbands, wives, a couple of mates—who deserve a break. Instead, those cost pressures—soaring energy bills, rising insurance premiums, employee costs through the roof—are driving insolvency at a rate unseen in this country and without response from this government.

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