Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

I listened closely to the member for Wentworth talking about small business in her contribution. I note that just now the Fair Work Commission has awarded a 3.75 per cent pay rise to 2.6 million minimum wage and award-reliant workers. The cost of business is getting harder for those small business operators, for those employers, right across the country. In its annual wage decision, the full bench of the commission, headed by Adam Hatcher, the president, said that the increase factored in cost-of-living pressures felt by households.

We know, right across this parliament and right across this nation, that there is a cost-of-living crisis. We know that Labor became aware of the cost-of-living crisis and started talking about it, moreover, on Monday 16 October last year. That was the first sitting day after the Voice—after the referendum which divided the nation. You didn't hear about a cost-of-living crisis whilst the Voice referendum was being debated across this country. Labor didn't want to know about it, and, if they did know about it, they weren't talking about it. But, all of a sudden, when the Voice was lost, Labor started to pretend it cared. We know Labor does not care about the cost-of-living pressures on households and on small businesses. All Labor cares about is getting re-elected. All Labor cares about is payback to their union puppet masters. That's the Labor way.

I respect the member for Paterson. I do. We do some great work together as co-chairs of the Parliamentary Friends of Soil. Those members who aren't in it should be.

A government member: Tell us more!

In another contribution I certainly will tell you more! But I will say that people across this wide brown land are now poorer thanks to Labor and now feel less safe thanks to Labor; that is certainly the case. The cost of health has risen by nine per cent. The cost of food—every time you go to the supermarket, it's costing you 10 per cent more; you're getting less in the grocery trolley than you were previously when there was a coalition government. The cost of education is up 11 per cent. The cost of housing is up 12 per cent, and we've got construction companies across the nation going bankrupt, going out of business, just shutting up shop. It's hard to get a tradie. It's hard to get the supplies to build a house, yet Labor continues with getting more migrants in—and I'm not against that, but we need to do it in moderation. We need to do it sensibly. We need to do it such that there isn't the pressure on urban housing demand, because heaven knows they're not coming to the regions where, in many cases, most cases or all cases, they would be welcome and there are jobs for them—and, indeed, cheaper rent and cheaper housing. The cost of public transport is up 13 per cent. The cost of electricity has seen an 18 per cent increase since the coalition lost office. The cost of gas is up 25 per cent—we know those opposite don't like gas anyway—and the cost of insurance is up 26 per cent. That is hurting each and every individual, each and every small business, right across the nation.

And what do we get in the budget? We get a public servant led recovery—36,000 more public servants. I'm not against public servants; they do a great job. I've been a minister in many portfolios and I've seen the great work they do. But when these decisions cost $24.4 billion over the four-year forward estimates to increase the amount of public servants, to increase the amount of bureaucracy, it hurts. It hurts taxpayers right across the nation. It hurts people who are already being told to pull their belts in, to make sure they rein in their expenses, yet they see in this great capital city of ours—and it is a great capital city—the beautiful roads and the increasing number of public servants, and they wonder why they are having to foot the bill. They're footing the bill because Labor is in power. They're footing the bill because Labor doesn't know how to govern properly for all Australians, and that is a terrific shame.

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