Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party, Minister for Small and Family Business, the Workplace and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Cowper for his question, acknowledging that he has a regional seat. In the winter recess I had the opportunity to travel around Australia and visit places like Cairns, with the member for Leichhardt; Noosa, with the member for Wide Bay; Lismore, with the member for Page; Mount Gambier, with the member for Barker; and Shepparton, with the member for Murray.

In all these places, it didn't take long, when talking to small and family business operators, for the conversation to turn to power prices. In fact, in the member for Leichhardt's seat, one store owner told me that power is now his biggest monthly expense, overtaking his rent for the first time. That's why the moves by the Minister for the Environment and Energy—the work he's done so far—have had great results. Wholesale power prices are 25 per cent lower this year. In my home state of New South Wales, as of 1 July, power prices decrease both for small and family businesses, and residential.

But the National Energy Guarantee is the missing piece of the puzzle, the piece that we need to introduce, so that small and family businesses Australia-wide will have the opportunity, as the modelling shows, to enjoy 20 per cent, on average, of wholesale electricity price decreases in the lead-up to 2030. This would allow small and family businesses to have more of their own money kept in their pocket. What happens then—and we've seen it today with the latest unemployment figures; we've heard it from the Treasurer and the Prime Minister with the million jobs created by the economy over the last 4½ years—is that small and family business owners will reinvest in themselves, back themselves, take on bank debt and employ more people. That's what happens.

The minister for the environment has mentioned already today: it's not just business groups representing businesses, irrespective of size, that are saying that this is a policy position that should be adopted; it's all across the board. Ben Davis, the Victorian secretary of the AWU—the Leader of the Opposition's own union, from his background—said in the last 24 hours, 'This must be passed through parliament.'

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