Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is always a privilege to be able to rise and talk about small business. Like many in parliament, small businesses are the heart of my community, but in a community like mine with regional and rural parts, it's even more important. I was lucky enough to spend 15 years in business working with small businesses prior to my time in politics. One of the most important reasons we need strong small businesses and family businesses in our community is that strong family and small businesses mean a strong community.

I've been lucky enough to have gone to every sporting ground all across the electorate of Casey before politics, as a struggling cricketer and now as the member for Casey. There is always one thing you notice at all of those grounds, outside of that strong community spirit. It's all the signs around the sides of the grounds. I always say I have seen lots of IGA independent supermarket signs. Deputy Speaker, I'm sure you'd see lots of Foodland signs in South Australia. I've yet to see a Woolworths or Coles sign sponsoring a local sports club. That's why we need to support small business.

Unfortunately, under this government, small business has been abandoned. Just one piece of legislation, which I had the opportunity to speak on about four weeks ago, is all the Minister for Small Business has brought to this House. The best business gets is the important asset write-off of $20,000, which is down on what the coalition offered during the last term of government. The coalition committed to extending it to $30,000 in perpetuity to give businesses that certainty.

They talk about the rebate at a time when bills for small businesses and medium-size businesses are going up tens and tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars. They are giving $370 back, and that's going to solve the problem. But I do want to talk about the real world impact of this. We can sit here and debate this while member after member from those opposite—I know they have to do it—runs through the talking points given to them by the Treasurer.

I had the privilege and the honour just before this to hear the Member for Braddon speak. He gave his valedictory speech just now in the House, and he spoke about the real Australians. The real Australians all across the country just want us to fix their problems. I want to share an email correspondence I had from a small business owner in my community, just to understand the pain that they are going through. She said to me:

… 23 & 24 have been extremely difficult years for my business. FY23 saw incredible cost increases on raw materials and packaging which we could not stem with retail price increases, resulting in a loss for the business. In FY24 we experienced a 30% decline in sales stemming from our customers nervousness in stocking shelves in this current economy, and whilst we could increase some prices, cut back on purchases and reduce labour hours to manufacture less, then slash any other unnecessary spending (mostly marketing and advertising), the unjustified increase in expenses outside of our control has resulted in another loss. We received increases as follows:

WorkCover—5.7% even though wages are down

Merchant fees—6.5% up

Interest on business loans -16.1%

Electricity, Gas & Water -35%

Registration and insurance—11.6%

Freight—3.8%

We are clawing back as best we can in this current FY, but if we do not see any relief on interest rates or electricity in the very near future, I fear we will join the 100,000 businesses that have already fallen into receivership!

The story is one of hundreds I could share across my community. But at the same time that my community is feeling this pain we have the Treasurer of Australia standing in the House last week giving his economic statement update and saying: 'Success. We're on track for a soft landing.' He's delivered brilliant numbers for the Australian people. How lucky are the Australian people!

Day after day we have to hear the Prime Minister and the Treasurer of this country stand at the dispatch box in the House and tell Australians how lucky they are, that they've never had it better, that inflation's down even though it's artificial—

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