Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I agree that Hobart is very sophisticated, but some people still regard it as regional. Having said that, and as I said in my second reading speech, I think it is absolutely essential that we support small business in Australia. The tragedy is that small business operators continue to support the coalition in spite of the fact that, day after day and week after week, the coalition tramples small business. We have seen an example of that in the last week or so with the reneging on the promise of a mandatory code. Fruit and vegetable growers in particular are outraged. They were promised things about labelling that went nowhere and then they were promised mandatory criteria. People as high as the Deputy Prime Minister, eight days before the last federal election, absolutely promised growers in Australia that they would get this mandatory code that would govern their relationship with the wholesalers and retailers—that they would get a decent go. Instead of that, after two years nothing has been done.

The coalition absolutely reneged and now it has been flick passed to Minister Macfarlane, who is saying that it is a voluntary code. It totally flies in the face of what the Deputy Prime Minister, John Anderson, said. Rural and regional Australia have a right to ask whether they can take the word of the Deputy Prime Minister on its merits. The former Deputy Prime Minister has been hung out to dry in front of the whole of rural and regional Australia. As the current Leader of The Nationals in the Senate was saying, the National Party has been dudded in front of the whole of rural and regional Australia. The fruit and vegetable growers across this country have been let down by the coalition in terms of the promise of a mandatory code, and now we have rural and regional Australia being let down again in relation to supporting small business.

We have never rejected the notion that we should be able to quarantine certain volumes to certain sections of the market, and I think that this is certainly one way in which we can support the small business operators in Australia and support rural and regional Australia. That is why I am supporting this amendment. I think it is significant. You only have to read the submissions from small business operators to see their awareness of what is going to happen to them as a result of this legislation. We have already seen the market dominance of the four major oil companies in Australia. We have seen what happened with the introduction of the supermarket schemes and we can see the writing on the wall. I think this is, as Senate Joyce has just said, a red-letter day for small business in Australia. In fact, it has been a red-letter week for small business because of the backdown that I referred to a moment ago. For all the words that have been spoken on this bill, it is essential that people actually stand up at this point and vote to support those small business operators throughout Australia, because they are not going to be there forever.

The people who are going to suffer the most are the people who have the least amount of power when it comes to lobbying the government. For all the government’s promises about standing up for the battler, standing up for the little guy, it is about big business, writ large. It has been big business writ large for the coal industry in holding up any movement on climate change. It is big business in terms of the government ignoring moves to ban the television advertising of junk food in children’s television hours. They are out there totally supporting big business in blocking the moves to do that. Now we have yet another example of it.

I am pleased that Senator Joyce has brought forward this amendment. I urge the Senate to support it as a very strong signal to small business and to rural and regional Australia that we believe these services are essential, that we support families in small businesses in rural communities and that we support allowing those communities to continue to be sustainable. There will come a day when the four big oil companies will withdraw from the so-called uneconomic sites. What is going to happen to those communities when that withdrawal occurs? When it occurs, the people to blame will be those who are sitting right here in this chamber. It should be taken up to them at the next election.