Jenny Ware (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to give support to the Treasury Laws Amendment (More Competition, Better Prices) Bill 2022. At the outset, I say it's a pleasure to follow the member for Bowman and I congratulate him on his considered and eloquent speech in this House today.

This bill seeks to increase the penalties for breaches of the Australian Consumer Law as well as the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. It is pleasing to see that many of the reforms proposed within this bill were as contained in the former coalition government's Treasury Laws Amendment (Enhancing Tax Integrity and Supporting Business Investment) Bill 2022.

We are lucky, in this country, to have strong protections for consumers. It is an important cornerstone in any modern economy for consumers to be confident in the goods and services for which they pay. In Australia, the Australian Consumer Law offers protections in significant areas, including unfair contract terms, consumer rights, product safety, door-to-door sales and telephone sales and lay-by agreements. The benefit of a strong Australian Consumer Law is to allow for these protections to be unified across Australia. We are a federated nation, and certainty for consumers in all states is only logical.

As part of this bill, body corporates can be fined a maximum of the greater of $50 million or three times the value of the offence, or 30 per cent of the adjusted turnover during the breach period. For persons other than a body corporate, the maximum fine will now be $2.5 million. These amendments will increase the severity of Australia's penalty regime for anticompetitive behaviour and facilitate the imposition of penalties that are more comparable with international jurisdictions.

Another important cornerstone of the Australian Consumer Law is the protections offered to small business in business-to-business transactions. Small business is the backbone of Australia. All small businesses rely upon a steady, consistent cash flow and simply cannot afford to absorb the costs of being the victim of unfair contract terms from larger entities. Large businesses often have legal teams at their dispose to challenge contracts and engage in litigation to resolve disputes. However, if the victim of unfair contract terms is a small business owner, he or she is prohibited, through both time and costs, from taking court proceedings against a much larger entity. The reforms proposed within this bill will discourage the use of unfair terms by reducing their prevalence in standard form contracts, helping protect small businesses. This will provide a lot of benefit for many of the small businesses located within my electorate.

The eligibility threshold for protections will be increased for small businesses with less than 20 employees to businesses with less than 100 employees. An alternative eligibility threshold will be included to allow businesses with an annual turnover of less than $10 million to be also eligible for unfair contract terms. There will no longer be a requirement for the upfront price payable under a contract to be below a certain threshold in order for the contract to be covered by the Australian Consumer Law. This will, of course, really improve the cash flow of many small businesses. Courts will also now be able to apply more flexible remedies when it declares a contract term unfair through clarifying the court's power to determine an appropriate remedy.

While I fully support these increased protections for consumers and small businesses, I must use this opportunity to challenge some of the costings announced by Labor in the lead-up to the May election and last night. During the election Labor claimed its policy to increase these penalties would raise $557 million in is first four years. However, the latest Treasury costings show that it will really merely raise $63 million. This is a $500 million blackhole. This is a significant discrepancy between the amount that Labor costed would come through from its penalty regime and the reality. This blackhole is one more example we saw of Labor's inability to properly cost, which we saw last night in their higher spending, higher taxing budget delivered in this House.

The test for the federal budget last night was for the government to build on the strong position it inherited from the coalition to address the cost of living particularly bearing down on Australians. When the Labor party announced this bill, it said that this would have a direct impact on the cost of living for Australians. However, Labor failed this test. We saw this last night. Just before the election the Prime Minister told Australians that they will all be better off under a Labor government. In reality, by Christmas, the typical Australian family be will at least $2,000 worse off.

As we emerge from the pandemic, the fundamentals of the Australian economy were strong. Our jobs growth was better and our debt was lower than any other advanced economy. Every nation in the world is facing challenges borne from the pandemic and amplified by global economic headwinds. We approached these challenges in a stronger position than any other nation. Despite this advantage, Labor's first budget fails to deliver for Australian families, for Australian businesses and for Australians overall. This budget fails Australian families at a time when they really need a plan to address cost-of-living pressures. Everybody that I've spoke to in my electorate of Hughes is struggling at the moment with the increased cost of living. This budget does nothing to assist their family budgets or other family budgets throughout our country. There is no credible plan to deal with the source of inflation or to help families deal with immediate cost-of-living pressures. Instead, there is an aspirational promise to build one million homes, starting in 2024, with a lack of detail about how this will occur. This is a budget heavy on partisan politics but lacking in overall economic plan.

What we do know is that the cost of living for all Australians is going up. Power prices are going up, and, instead of the $275 reduction that we were promised in the election campaign, we heard last night that it's anticipated everybody's power prices will be up by more than 50 per cent. Gas prices are also going up by more than 40 per cent. We heard this last night. Also taxes are also going up—$142 billion more than was anticipated or spoken about in the election campaign. In addition, we've got unemployment forecast to increase; interest rates have increased significantly this year and are forecast to continue to increase next year; and real wages, promised, during the election campaign, to increase under Labor, are instead forecast to decrease. This is again a high-taxing and high-spending budget that does nothing to help Australian families or Australian businesses.

If we turn to some of the tax reforms that were announced last night, the Albanese government has again failed to limit the taxes imposed on Australians. Under Labor, as I've just said, the tax paid by Australians will increase by $142 billion over the forward estimates. The tax cap of 23.9 per cent of GDP has been abandoned. Families facing cost-of-living pressures should be able to keep more of what they earn. This budget delivers no certainty for the 10 million Australians on their legislated tax relief which is due next year. The only new change to the tax system announced in this budget is a new tax on investments. I have many self-funded retirees within the electorate of Hughes. This sneaky new tax will slug people who invest their own savings and superannuation—people who have worked very hard throughout their lives, don't want to rely on government and instead are now being punished through higher taxes.

There was an opportunity squandered last night. The Albanese government inherited an enviable set of economic circumstances from the former coalition government. In just one year under the coalition, between 2020-21 and 2021-22, the budget position improved by over $100 billion, the largest budget turnaround since Federation. The coalition wants Australians to do well, but we are hampered by a new government with no real economic plan for the future. Australians deserve better from a government that promised so much during the election campaign but, in its first economic test last night, delivered very little.

This is also a breach of trust. It's a breach of trust with the Australian people. It's also a missed opportunity. On 97 separate occasions before the election and during the campaign, Labor promised a $275 cut in power prices. This budget confirms an increase of more than 50 per cent for Australian families, Australian individuals and Australian businesses. Labor promised to increase real wages. This budget, however, demonstrates real wages are going backwards. Before May, the Labor Party promised no new tax changes. This budget dumps the tax cut and delivers instead a new tax on investors and self-funded retirees.

To conclude, whilst I commend the bill to the House, it still demonstrates Labor's inability to properly calculate costings that will come out from this bill. There is a $500 million black hole within the legislation, confirmed by Treasury, and this $500 million black hole is just one example of some of the bad economic measures that were introduced last night. Whilst the government is to be congratulated for implementing overall the coalition government's protections for consumers and small business in this bill, Labor said its competition policy was all about reducing the cost of living. The high-taxing budget of last night clearly demonstrated that the government is not committed to reducing, or is unable to reduce, the cost of living for most Australians.

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