I accept the audible gasps from the members behind me! If it weren't so absurd, on something so serious, it would be laughable. The government was out there, remember? The Prime Minister was out there with a picture of his credit card on his social media, talking about how they'd implemented this ban and they had something to be proud of. They really wanted to own the decision until they realised the consequences and they turned around and said: 'Oh, we can't fix this now. We take ownership of it, but we can't actually fix it.'

So the Minister for Foreign Affairs says that the government has no power to correct it. Well, the Leader of the Opposition and we on the opposition benches decided, 'If you don't have the power to fix it, we'll give you the power to fix it.' Then, presto! All of a sudden, the Treasurer was able to! He was the action man coming out and saying, 'I'm going to extend Australians being able to pay bills to the Australian Taxation Office by credit card for another 12 months.' This mysterious power they didn't have—they didn't have the levers to advance the interests of Australian small business—like presto, it suddenly appeared.

Considering their history and the deceit and dishonesty that this government has consistently tried to get away with, this is another changed position. We've seen so many of these examples, like saying 50 times before the election they were not going to introduce higher and more taxes on small business, and then getting elected and doing so. They didn't have the power to overturn the ATO credit card ban. Now they do.

We're just going to remove doubt for all time by simply making an amendment to the relevant legislation to confirm and to absolve the concerns of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and, of course, all the other members on the other side of this chamber present, that indeed the Treasurer does have the power and that the ATO will have the capacity to accept tax bills through credit card payments. We will make sure that, where Australians have to pay tax to an entity that has a legal monopoly, they actually are able to use different payment methods—you know, kind of like small businesses have to do. What we simply want is to make sure that, if you're a small business and you're part of the economy and you're paying your tax, you're able to do it on terms that work for you. Whether it's your GST, whether it's the PAYG, whether it's withholding or whether it's income tax, or whatever mechanism it is, you can decide how best to manage your cash flow, and the government doesn't make the decision for you.

There are so many small businesses right now across this country that are struggling to stay alive. They're looking for cash flow. Their revenue is down. As I said before, we have record insolvencies and plenty more just closing the door. Many businesses have profitability margins of one or two per cent. And, despite what the Minister for Small Business says, it isn't because 'maybe they're dodgy'; it's actually because this government has created economic conditions which have made it hard for them to survive. We saw in the last federal budget that the answer from the Albanese government from on high was to turn around and say: 'We've got a solution to your crisis of confidence. We've got a solution to the problems of declining revenue and collapsing consumer and small-business confidence. We're going to chuck more taxes on the small businesses of this country.'

This isn't just an attack on small business, to be clear; this is an attack on community, because small business is the lifeblood of community. They are the first people to give a young Australian a job and a foothold on the ladder of economic opportunity. The Labor Party used to claim they believed in that. They clearly don't believe in it any more. They're also the first commercial entity that goes along and donates to and supports local footy clubs, local cricket clubs and local netball clubs. They're the first to give a hand out and back them in. We're going to back them in. We're going to make sure that there's a full pathway for the consequences of this government's surcharge ban, that people actually have accountability within the government, and that they can then be called to account.

We need a government that takes responsibility because what we've seen successively, particularly under this Treasurer, is that the government doesn't seem to have any idea of the consequences of the decisions that they're making. This is no longer an opinion; you just need to read John Kehoe's article in the Australian Financial Review today: 'According to government sources, some senior members were not aware that shares, businesses and other assets would be captured until the day' that their new tax was introduced from their budget. The government had no idea what was going on. We know full well that we had continual problems where the government's only answer has been politics. One source said:

I don't think there's so much a failure of policy, but a failure of politics.

Well, I've got news for you. When you think about everything through the lens of politics and not the lens of policy, you're putting Australians last. That's the problem.

I didn't even get to the Minister for Small Business. We have the incompetent being led by the blind. Yesterday she confirmed she didn't even know that this ban was coming into place. This is the problem, and that's why this legislation must pass.