Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Twenty-seven thousand businesses. Yes, you've heard it right, if you're listening. The December 2024 quarter was the worst quarter for business insolvencies on record, with 3,852 businesses going to the wall. The private sector in Australia is in decline, and the majority of jobs created by the Albanese government are being funded by public spending. Rather than taking this issue seriously or taking this issue on, or having any sort of plan and picking small businesses up with the support that they desperately need, the Albanese government is pushing them down with brazen cash grabs in this bill. They're taxing them more with cash grabs.

We saw the government double down on their attack on small businesses today, as I said before, with their bizarre response to the coalition's food and entertainment tax deductibility for money that businesses spend. It's their money. We're talking about small businesses spending their own money on meetings with staff. They might have had a good month—they achieved budget—and they have a staff meeting over lunch. The business spends the money, not the government. All they're doing is giving the tax deduction if you've got a business turnover of under $10 million, like lots of little businesses. The government want to attack that as well, and that's because none of them have run a business. None of them have. I'd love to hear about the businesses that those opposite have run!

This morning the Treasurer was quoting figures that were high and absolutely incorrect. This policy has a modest cost but a big impact for those small businesses, who can have the confidence to reward their staff or clients with a coffee or a meal without attracting further tax liabilities.

The government has made it clear that they don't support meaningful tax relief for Australia's small businesses. The Treasurer has never run a business, and now he seems set on ensuring no other Australian wants to run one either. To come back to this bill, these are not serious reforms. This is a government running out of ideas and reverting to its usual form: to tax more.

Schedule 1 of the bill relates to the luxury car tax that was brought in by the Labor government and the former treasurer, Wayne Swan, back in 2007. What it will do is it'll alter the luxury car tax by restricting the definition of a fuel efficient vehicle. Right now, every car that's over $80,567 has a luxury car tax on it, but if it's an electric vehicle or if it's a vehicle that uses seven litres per 100 kilometres—some sort of hybrid vehicle—the luxury car tax kicks in at $91,387. That's the way it's been; it's raising $1½ billion or something a year. So what does this government want to do? They want to change the definition of a fuel efficient car and make it so that, 'Oh, no, seven litres per 100 is not good enough. We're going to bring it down to 3½ litres per 100.' That's their plan, when we've seen 27,000 small businesses go broke so far.

These amendments will reduce consumer choice and apply the luxury car tax to more vehicles. And why? Because they're spending some $350 billion extra over the forward estimates compared to the last budget that Josh Frydenberg delivered in the Morrison government. They're spending everything that Josh budgeted plus another $350 billion, so they're grabbing taxes where they can. The new definition of fuel efficiency will effectively limit the threshold to just EVs. It compounds Labor's existing ute and family car tax policy via new fuel efficiency standards. And although the government eventually watered down that proposal, it is now imposing a new tax by dramatically limiting what is considered fuel efficient for the luxury car tax. It is a tax grab.

As I said before, the luxury car tax already brought in over a billion dollars a year in the 2023-24 financial year. But, not content with that, they want more—more to spend, to fund dud policies like free TAFE, which has a 13 per cent completion rate. I went to TAFE, mate. A 13 per cent completion rate? That's not how to spend taxpayers' money. University students pay HECS, but, no, if you go to TAFE, you can't contribute anything. That policy is a dud policy. When I'm dead and buried, 100 years from now, Labor will still be going on about free TAFE. They recycle these dud policies over and over again. I've been involved with politics for some time, and Labor have been saving TAFE for 20 years.

You know what else they've been saving for 20 years? Medicare. I saw the member for Lilley had a campaign launch the other day on social media: 'Save Medicare.' Give me a break! Bulk-billing has never been lower than what it is under the Albanese government. We should be saving Medicare from you lot, the Albanese government, not from a future coalition government.

The coalition supports a fuel-efficient and low-emissions transport sector in Australia, but it must be based on the principle of choice. Maximising the choice of vehicles available to Australians—that's what we should be doing. Originally, 15 or so years ago, when Labor brought in this new tax—the luxury car tax—it was there because, 'Oh, well, we have Australian cars. We've got to save the industry.' But now we don't have Australian cars. Why? Mainly because unions keep pushing up the price of wages.

What has the Minister for Climate Change and Energy over here done to energy prices for businesses? In fewer than three years, he's doubled the price of energy for every business in Australia. I challenge a member opposite—a member of the Labor Party—to go out and talk to a business in their electorate and find me a business that hasn't had their energy double. Most businesses have had a 100 per cent increase in their energy prices in fewer than three years. That's the legacy. That's what you're approaching the next election with in the next 12 weeks. That's what you'll have to defend—the doubling of energy prices for small businesses, tens of thousands of businesses closing and, now, additional tax. And not only that—consumer electricity has gone up.

The other thing is no disadvantage. That's what the coalition supports. The poor, the vulnerable and regional Australians should not be worse off, but they are under this government. The overall financial affordability of cars currently available should not be diminished. It's a low-emissions policy, not just EVs. Hybrids, hydrogen and biofuels all have a role to play. Hybrids are exceptional. If you look at the COMCARs that they run down here, those Camrys, they've got remarkable fuel efficiency. They wouldn't be classed. They would be hit with this new tax under this bill. I don't know where your electorate is, but it's a couple of thousand kilometres from here?

See this speech in context