Helen Kroger (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

You have to chuckle listening to that submission from Senator Crossin. You can see why she wanted us to take note of answers on education. She would not know one end of a business from another, having been a former union official for the National Tertiary Education Union in the Northern Territory. It does beg the question: has she ever worked a day in her life in a business, whether a small business or a medium enterprise? Has she ever worked a day in a business to ascertain what it is about?

It is just laughable for her to suggest that Senator Fifield and the coalition are disingenuous in their protestation over the introduction of a carbon tax and our pledge—which we will live up to—to repeal the tax. The Australian public know that we are deadset and we mean this. It is not something that we support in any context whatsoever and, should we be elected into government, as our leader the honourable Tony Abbott in the other place has said, the first thing we will do is repeal this carbon tax and so we will.

The other point that Senator Crossin was foolish enough to suggest was that we will not engage with the business community. Twelve months ago, Senator Fifield went to an event. He is engaged in Isaacs and many other electorates, as am I.

I would like to draw Senator Crossin's attention to a number of things that the local businesses in the electorates for which I am duty senator say about the carbon tax. If there is anything that the coalition does, it is that we are connected to the business community. We understand and know their challenges because many of us have not only worked in businesses but have actually run and managed them and know the challenges that are faced every day by them. I refer to a cabinet maker in Croydon, Deakin, who has worked in the industry for 18 years. I was there only two weeks ago with the Deakin candidate, Michael Sukkar. This is what we do: we actually go out and meet businesspeople when parliament is not sitting and talk to them about the things that are making their life difficult. He told us that, after having been in the industry for over 18 years, he can no longer employ apprentices because of the escalating cost of doing an honest day's work, and it is becoming increasingly harder.

A greengrocer that I visited in Ringwood East is bracing for their next electricity bill, because the highest overhead, the most expensive overhead, in running their business is the cost of electricity. They are in fear of what that electricity bill will look like. In order to make that business viable they can no longer employ anyone. There is an incredibly fine line for a small business between not making any money, or actually making a loss, and having the books in the black. So, where they once employed casual staff, they are now reducing the number of staff whom they can employ and covering the hours themselves. This is what small business do. They set up enterprises not only to try and support their immediate families but also for their kids for times to come.

There are a many of these small businesses. Over the last fortnight, while we were not sitting, there would have been 12 businesses that I visited with John Nguyen, the candidate for Chisholm, and Michael Sukkar, the candidate for Deakin, and the message that we were told time and time again by businesses was that they will not be able to withstand the imposition of the carbon tax. There are so many examples that I could iterate. Senator Sinodinos raised some again today that are in New South Wales. A butcher at the Oakley markets has the same problem with the increasing costs of refrigerants. This tax is an imposition that we will repeal. (Time expired)