Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business and Fair Competition) Share this | Hansard source

I will take that interjection, Senator Furner, because, when you are seeing small business bankruptcies go up by 50 per cent in 12 months, you have got a problem. The reason is just as it was in 1991 during the recession we had to have. Small business is the canary in the coalmine of this economy. When small business starts struggling you know the economy has a problem. You know that the statistics you might be seeing around the cabinet table do not tell you the full story. Smart politicians and good governments know that. Good governments know that economic statistics, high-quality as they are, tell you part of the story. But when you are looking at survey after survey of collapses in small business confidence and businesses are telling you that they are seeing energy and freight costs—even for greengrocers, as we have seen in today's paper—go up by a third in two months, then you should actually take a look at the theory that is being presented to you and the modelling that you are claiming to rely upon and say, 'Where might this be wrong?'

But no: this government is like the three monkeys—see no evil, hear no evil; I just wish they spoke no evil! They sit there and say, 'No, that is not what our modelling said,' but we are seeing it out in the community. Walk along your local shopping strip and ask the people what it is costing them in their energy bills. Ask them what it is costing those who sell food—particularly those who have to run refrigerators. Ask them what it is costing them in freight deliveries and what you will see is that costs are going up. Anecdote after anecdote, story after story: reality is what is striking this government in the face. It is striking this government in the face because it is the result of the very policy they intentionally implemented. This government introduced a carbon tax. The intention of that carbon tax is to make energy more expensive. For a century we did everything we could to make energy cheaper. It was the basis of the industrial economy in my home state of Victoria.

We knew that cheap energy was a competitive advantage that this country had, that it is one of the reasons we do not have the similarly high taxes on fuels that you see in Europe. It helps everyone, from our regional economies, from our farmers, to those who are simply dropping off the kids at school or running a local courier business.

This is the intentional result of this government's policy: high energy costs, which means that the cost of doing business is higher than it would be. But, no, this government simply refuses. On the one hand it says, 'That's what we intended to do,' but, on the other hand, it says, 'It'll only be less than a per cent.' Reality is striking this government in the face. It is the same reality that we are seeing in the lack of small business confidence. I just wish this government would listen.