Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The great thing about the internet is the humour, and I have been seeing all these jokes and memes. I am not a big fan of the AI generated images of the PM, but businesses are so frustrated that they are putting up these images. They're putting up these images where you've got the Prime Minister—in the one I saw this morning, there's a guy on the building site digging a hole, and he's got the PM holding his arms around him. This theme goes on and on. The message now is that PM Albanese and the Labor government basically own 50 per cent of their business simply due to the high taxes and also, in particular, the capital gains tax changes, the trust changes and the negative gearing changes. It makes it really tough. If you've planned ahead in a small business, whether it be a person who may be in a hairdresser or a butcher or a tradie or whatever it is—in particular, tradies in La Trobe have been hit really hard. You've arranged income splitting on the accountant's advice, and now you've got the situation where—I spoke to people yesterday. People, especially from my multicultural communities, are all going and seeing their accountants at the moment. With booking and seeing the accountant once, you have to pay a fee to see the accountant, but the accountant is saying, 'We're expecting some changes,' and is saying to come back.

If the Labor members don't think this is going to hurt them when it comes to small business, in particular the multicultural community, I can tell you now the feedback I'm getting is absolutely red hot. They are really concerned about the changes they need to make for their future when they've planned ahead maybe 10 years. It's of great concern. I know that the Labor members—and I've heard the Treasurer and the Prime Minister speak about how all this is going to benefit young people and make it fairer. I ask them to listen to the interview with their own treasurer. The Daily Aus editor in chief, Billy FitzSimons was asking questions to the Treasurer. He obviously didn't have a clue about the impacts on young people. Concerns were raised by her in questions about facing higher rents, mortgages and financial uncertainty. The data suggests thriving they're but live lives of telling stories—it's going to make their lives so much tougher in the future. I just say to the Labor members, you're going to have to change this in particular for the trust, because you're hurting so many small businesses right across the country.

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