Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also seek to take note of the remarks made by Senator Conroy following questions from the opposition. I must say that it is always a pleasure to follow Senator Furner in this chamber in terms of taking note. Firstly, I would like to point out to him that question time is actually not for the opposition to detail their policy to the government, it is for the government to be held accountable. I would also like to follow up briefly on his comment in relation to superannuation and about how he was a union secretary, of course. I think in that one brief little comment he has nailed one of the biggest problems we have with this government: of course he was a union secretary. Most of the government were union secretaries or presidents in their past life. Most of them have never worked in a business where their assets were on the line in their lives. They have not got a clue. And this goes on and on.

I quite deliberately referred to Senator Conroy 's remarks rather than Senator Conroy's answers to questions put by opposition senators around superannuation and the small business situation, because they were not answers. Asked about the effect of the carbon tax on business, all Senator Conroy could do was rabbit on about household costs and what Treasury modelling about household costs had said. I would suggest that it is not the opposition that needs to get out and talk to people—we are already doing that. What we bring to this place is based on what they tell us. It is the government that is so bound up in its own little philosophies and ideologies that it is not getting out to talk to people.

As the shadow minister for small business, Mr Bruce Billson, has pointed out in a media release, small business does not need the current financial situation which has been set up by this government and its actions, or should I say, lack of actions. Business conditions were considerably weaker in the December quarter as the NAB survey points out, deteriorating to their lowest level since the June quarter 2009—the lowest they have been in three years. There has been a deterioration in mining conditions and yet all this government can do is try to pitch its survival on a mining tax which is apparently not raising anything.

In my home state of Queensland—and the home state of Senator Furner, where would you think he would have some idea of what was going on—conditions were very poor according to this NAB survey. Business confidence edged lower and remained lacklustre. The poor old Reserve Bank is trying to do what it can. Recent interest rate reductions have done little to alleviate business worries about the currently soft state of our economy. We have Senator Furner claiming that people are out there spending on legs of lamb and the like and yet the NAB quarterly survey points out that sales were the most constraining factor on output in the quarter. I quote:

… with almost two-thirds of firms reporting lack of sales and orders as their biggest constraint.

Their biggest constraint was the lack of orders and the lack of sales. Yet this government tries to find yet another way to attack small business.

We already have them needing to do their own administration on maternity leave. We have the BAS payments being required monthly, not quarterly. We have example after example of this government attacking and putting on small imposts that are incremental in their own right but come on top of the carbon tax. The price of diesel has gone up 2.5c per litre in the recent 12 months. The costs for business and the labour relations that this union dominated government has developed are all adding up to a disaster, including the superannuation cuts that they are now proposing.

Question agreed to.