Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in the Senate this afternoon to make some remarks about small business. When Robert Menzies established the Liberal Party some 76 years ago, Menzies thought very carefully about the sorts of people that the Liberal Party would be wanting to represent in the future. He talked at length about the concept of the forgotten people, and the forgotten people were the small-business people, skilled artisans and the like. I think one of the real risks we run as we endure this economic and health shock is that the people that are going to be most affected are those people, those forgotten people—people who work in small business, people who don't work for the government, people who don't work for big business.

Perhaps the most important thing you can do as a representative in a democracy is to be engaged with the people. I have done my best over these past few months, as my state has been locked down, to listen carefully to people who are working in wholly different small-business sectors. I've listened carefully, and I want to do my best over these next few months to represent your interests.

One of the common features of many of the affected small businesses is that they are sitting on top of ancient regulatory frameworks in the industrial relations space and in the skills and training space, and often they are held back by, again, quite ancient and arcane migration laws and arrangements. And all the legal complexities which Canberra and the states have put in place over the decades really have made the impact of the lockdowns much worse. I want to step through a few of these sectors.

The first one is the fitness sector. People would think of that as their local gym, perhaps. They might think of it as a personal trainer. They might think of it as some outdoor activity. Before the pandemic, around 140,000 people were employed in this sector, according to the industry, and some 80,000 jobs have been shed. Personal training is available in some states. It is available in New South Wales if it is on a one-on-one basis, but that does not and cannot be seen as a way of replacing the day-to-day business the normal gym would be able to receive through memberships and through casual visits. I've spoken to gym owners. I understand it takes years and years to build up a good local business through marketing and through word of mouth and engagement with the community wherever the gym is. I'm very aware that gyms were the first to close and they'll be the last to reopen.

One of the lessons we should be taking from this pandemic is that health is good. Health and fitness is a good thing. We should be looking to incentivise people to get engaged with their health as best they can. One very regrettable campaign that is being run by the Lord Mayor of Sydney at the moment is to close down the Moore Park golf course. They want to cut it in half and destroy it. It's been there for more than 100 years, and it's a very important institution that is available to all people across the social spectrum. Moore Park public course is available to anyone, and I encourage people to go there. You will see that there are a broad range of people visiting it, learning how to play golf and being active. It is a public golf course. Frankly, we can't all be silvertails. The collapse of these public golf courses will mean golf becomes something that is out of reach for the average worker, who can't afford to purchase a $50,000 membership to go and play at Royal Sydney.

I use this opportunity to remind people in New South Wales that the Lord Mayor of Sydney's plan to collapse public golf is not in the interests of the community; it's certainly not in the interests of peoples' health. What we need to do after the lockdowns are ended is look at ways to incentivise people to go to the gym, to get fit. It's a good idea and we should be doing more of it and have a very open mind to supporting the fitness industry. Hairdressers and barbers are equally affected. They can't open. They can't earn any revenue, because they're in the personal care sector. Beauticians are in the same boat.

As I mentioned at the start of my contribution, the lockdowns come on top of very complicated labour law arrangements and very complicated migration arrangements. In terms of barbers and hairdressers, these are some of the hardest skills to fill, particularly in metropolitan areas, where trying to get a barber is virtually impossible. Many of these small businesses will spend $5,000 or 10,000 to bring someone out, often from Europe. Some of the current arrangements barbers and hairdressers are facing are very troubling. They are looking at losing these skills, because they're on the deletion list. I think we should be looking to ensure that people who are running these shops, who have put their savings on the line, should be able to attract and keep the skills they need to run their businesses, especially after the pandemic. Having provided a lifeline to some of the businesses to keep them going on the smell of an oily rag, the last thing we want to see is that, when they emerge from the lockdown, all their staff disappear. We have to be very, very open to making further changes to support barbers and hairdressers.

Travel agents, as people would know, have been heavily affected—basically 18 months in limbo. Many people have left this sector because it's not seen as an attractive place to work because of the uncertainty. I've spoken to travel agents around Sydney who say they don't even think they would be able to secure a tenancy in Sydney—because why would a person who owns a retail shop want to let it out to a travel agent given the uncertainty that this sector has faced? One of the most concerning factors that I think is facing any industry is the prospect of having negative revenue. We are 18 months into the pandemic, and travel agents haven't been able to earn any new revenue. All they're doing is processing refunds. According to the industry, they are processing $4 billion worth of refunds. So we need to have a very open mind to providing more financial support to this sector at the end of the lockdowns.

The broader travel industry, which already has some financial support, is suffering under the very low caps for entry into Australia. A whole lot of humanitarian reasons that are happening right now determine the use of some of those caps but we really need to be getting those caps up to a much higher level. I think we should be getting very close to setting some dates alongside the national plan because these sectors have put up with enough rot—and that's why it's important that the state premiers do the right thing and stick by the national plan.

Finally, many hospitality businesses are down by 95 per cent. Many businesses cannot transition to 'come and get a coffee while you're out on your walk with your mask'. They can't do that. So they haven't been able to open and they haven't been able to employ their staff. Some of these matters will be up to the states. If there is going to be a 'four square metres rule', which is effectively unviable for many restaurants and cafes, they won't reopen and they won't be back; the risks are too great. So as we get closer towards the fourth phase of this plan we need to provide some incentives, perhaps through the states, to ensure that when these businesses open they're allowed to open properly for the vaccinated Australians, that they're allowed to open and service people and get back to business.

The hospitality sector has publicly flagged that they would like to see changes to fringe benefits tax to incentivise the use of their services. No doubt the budget is under great pressure, and I'm sure that the Treasury would be against any changes to fringe benefits tax. But I think we should at least consider the idea of giving a one-year holiday so that people can frequent bars and restaurants for the next 12 months to help restaurants, cafes and the hospitality sector get back in business. A one-year holiday from FBT could be a very effective way to try and make up some of the extensive lost revenue.

Finally, I would just make this point: we don't want to see, at the end of this crisis, more big government and more big business. There's nothing wrong with big business, but we want to see a thriving small-business sector, which is something that my party has been prepared to speak up for over the past 76 years. I think we've done a good job so far, but we should be prepared to open the taxpayer wallet again and support sectors with unique problems through having been smashed by the pandemic. It will not be a good outcome if we finish the pandemic with more big government and more big business and a much smaller private sector in terms of small business.