Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As it's the home of the entrepreneurial spirit, Gold Coasters love to support small business. We have 78,000 registered businesses that employ over 383,500 locals. It's a huge number. This is the story for many regional towns and small cities across our great country. But small businesses and families are all hurting under this government. They're facing rising costs, higher interest rates and a decline in demand as a direct result of the Prime Minister's distracted and divided government, with all the wrong priorities.

Just last week, the RBA left interest rates on hold, putting further pressure on businesses and households amidst the Prime Minister's cost-of-living crisis. The RBA governor, Michele Bullock, was clear as to why when she said:

Wages are rising at a much faster rate than the RBA's inflation targets, so the only way interest rates can be reduced is an improvement in our appalling productivity.

They were her words. We're seeing a decline in productivity due to increased government supported activities, and that, of course, means spending. We are seeing a decline in highly productive family businesses that are employers. Just think back. Not even 20 years ago, they contributed 40 per cent of the GDP and employed over 53 per cent of the private sector workforce. Now those small businesses account for just 33 per cent of our nation's GDP and provide only 42 per cent of the private sector workforce with a job. So they've shrunk. This rapid decline in small businesses is alarming and it's a disaster for my community on the Gold Coast. The proof is in the pudding. Businesses are going bust under Labor and it will unfortunately only get worse.

Business-to-business payment defaults are at a record high—69.4 per cent year on year—as businesses have struggle to pay their invoices. I'm just painting a picture here of what the landscape is like for small and family businesses. They're also struggling to pay their power bills, as all Australians are. They have risen by thousands and thousands of dollars. What is Labor's response to that? It's to give them $325 and spread it quarterly. It won't even touch the sides. It's a joke on small and family businesses.

According to research commissioned by Energy Consumers Australia and COSBOA, energy hardship and financial strains are hitting small businesses harder than COVID did! One in five businesses are struggling to pay their energy bills on time. That's 20 per cent. And nearly half are concerned about their ability to pay they're future energy bills. If the lights go out in a small and family business then everything stops. The world stops. There's energy, maintenance, staff, rent, interest rates staying higher for longer, debts spiralling out of control and no savings to draw down on. That's dried up as well. On top of that, there's falling revenues. It all spells disaster.

But the bad news doesn't stop there. The latest Business Risk Index paints a very grim picture for the future of many Australian businesses. It notes that one in 11 hospitality business are set to fail over the next year. There are tens of thousands of hospitality businesses on the Gold Coast, as anybody who has been up there on a holiday knows. And I encourage you all to come on up. Hospitality businesses are everywhere. One in 11 are set to fail across the country. The value of business orders is at a record low. The average value of invoices held by businesses halved over the year to June 2024. That's half the revenues. ASIC reported that 11,049 insolvencies occurred in the last financial year, and that's a 30 per cent increase on the previous financial year. What do we hear from this government? We hear crickets.

When we tried to increase the instant asset write-off, which the coalition government put in place, from $20,000 to $30,000 with an amendment to their legislation, what did Labor do? They refused, and they sent a very strong message to every single business owner in this country that they are not the party for you. They do not care about you and your family business. That was the message they sent when they did not agree to that amendment. These businesspeople provide 5.36 million jobs to Australians. I implore this government to take immediate action to assist small and family businesses across the country. Do it now!