Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

Today in question time I raised the concerns of Russell Greenwood of Russell’s Prime Quality Meats from Coffs Harbour. Russell is a small business man who works hard in his business. He works seven days a week. He and his wife Debbie make sure that they provide great products for their customers and they always go the extra mile. Russell is the sort of person who keeps this country going. Yet in this House today the minister for small business could not be bothered to give him an answer to a question. He did not even bother to try to answer the question, probably because he could not. He did not bother to listen and he just does not care.

There will be thousands of businesspeople around this country just like Russell who will see the lack of concern by this government for the small business sector. It takes the small business sector to keep employing people. It takes the small business sector to provide many of the services out there in the economy. And yet this government could not care less. What does this government do to support small business? It imposes a great big new tax—a massive tax that is going to drive up their costs, that is going to put people out of work and that is going to drive up prices for the customers who they serve in our community.

What does it mean for people like the Greenwoods when their electricity bill is going to go up by 60 per cent as a result of the tag team of state Labor and federal Labor. State Labor and federal Labor are combining to bring you a 60 per cent increase in electricity costs. These are costs that small businesses cannot afford to bear. These are costs that are going to take this country backwards. These are costs that are not going to provide a better environmental outcome. This ETS is nothing but a great big new tax and the people out there—the average Australians—are rapidly coming to know this as a fact.

The thing that Kevin Rudd does not want you to know about his big new tax is the fact that it will cost jobs. He does not want you to know that it is going to drive up the prices of everything you buy. We have had endless promises from this Prime Minister, a Prime Minister who has a reputation for being all talk and no action. This is the Prime Minister who promised that low-income earners will be fully compensated. But I would say to those people who are relying on this promise by the Prime Minister: best of luck. Because here we have a Prime Minister who promised to take over our hospitals if they were not up to scratch by 30 June 2009. He promised to put downward pressure on fuel and grocery prices. He promised to save the whales. And now this Prime Minister is promising to impose a great big new tax but to hand it all back. It is absolutely nonsensical and the Australian people just are not going to buy it; just as the small business community are not going to buy it. They are going to be taxed out of existence with little or no compensation. It is not good enough that we have a small business minister in this House who will not provide answers to questions when they are asked in this chamber.

When we look at the impact of this tax on families, we see nothing but government spin. We see the Prime Minister unable to articulate what these costs are going to mean for families. We see a Prime Minister who cannot work out what the increase in the price of bread will be, what the increase in the price of milk will be or what the increase in the price of a whole manner of staples will be. He simply goes to the easy-reference Treasury document that he can keep secret so that he does not have to put on the public record the true workings of this massive new tax. He is certainly not being upfront with the Australian people. He is trying to conceal the facts from the Australian people.

The Australian people have some very clear choices in this debate. They have a choice between the opposition’s plan for direct action on climate change, which is going to deliver real environmental benefits and real outcomes on the ground, and they have the government’s alternative—a massive new tax that is going to do nothing for the environment, a massive new tax that is going to drive up the cost of everything that Australians buy, a massive new tax that most Australians do not want or need. As the days go by, the people of Australia are rapidly coming to realise that Mr Rudd is all talk and no action and nothing more than a con artist.

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