Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

What was your small business, Senator Pratt? I note your interjection. Give us an update. I'd love to hear all the small-business experience coming from those on the other side of this chamber and in the House, because it's very difficult to establish, unlike on this side of the house, where almost every member at some point in time has run a small business. Ours was in agriculture, and I can tell you that was good fun—superfun! Not only do you have government policy doing awful things to your business but you're actually out there praying, 'Please rain,' and then, at a different time of year, 'Please stop raining.' Yes, that's a superfun business! Not being in agriculture anymore—and I feel for the farmers every harvest—I've got to say as the ex-wife of a contractor I don't miss it. I don't miss it and I get a bit of PTSD every time I see a header! But I digress.

But do you know where these small business owners that have a family of four and are trying to find the extra $22,000 might find it? It's from cutting one of the staff from their business or cutting two of the staff from their business. Do you know what that means? That means unemployment starts to go up, and that means the staffer who just lost his job—because the small-business owner is trying to pay his own mortgage, pay for his own kids and put food on the table—is going to find it even more difficult. So we see the cycle continue.

Some of us didn't nap through our economics lectures at university and actually turned up to the tutorials, and so we understand some of the basic economic principles that seem to elude those opposite. I think what is very frightening is that we hear lauded by Treasurer Chalmers the fact that he did his PhD on Prime Minister Keating, I believe, and claims that this is his hero. But, if we look at what this government is trying to do, they're moving back to before prime ministers Hawke and Keating. They are refusing to even uphold the values of the accord. They are trying to head back to pre the eighties. Whilst I do remember the recession and the election of Prime Minister Hawke, I was quite young back then, but I do know that Prime Minister Hawke came in and did take an approach, which was supported, if my memory serves me, by the then opposition Treasurer John Howard, making sensible reforms to the Australian economy, floating the Australian dollar and making sure there was a wages accord so that Australia could move into a modern economic climate and have an economy that was able to compete and participate on a world stage. That's not here today, people. No.

The Australian people need to understand we are heading into a time machine. We're back to the seventies and the eighties, where we're going to see small businesses pushed out. We have this facade of 'same job, same pay', which is absolutely so detrimental to the Australian economy. I think today I saw an article that said a $13 billion hole would be blown into the economy—because that's what we can afford at the moment!—a $13 billion hole, thanks to a deceptive policy that's coming through under a pretty slogan, which is actually a complete fallacy.

I'll run through it again for those opposite, who aren't getting it. Your budget in October has consistently contributed to the cost of living for all Australians. It's going up for every Australian. So that means increased grocery bills, increased pressure on supply chains and increased petrol costs and energy inputs going in at every step of the way. Whether it's food production with the safeguard mechanism—you know, agriculture is not included but Incitec Pivot is, because those opposite have struggled to find a farm let alone work on one. Incitec Pivot creates fertiliser, which goes on all food products. So when Incitec Pivot have to put their prices up, input costs go onto agriculture. That means food costs go up.

We know they would love to go back to targeting the owner-drivers of trucks. We know they want to put pressure on that, because they want their union mates and their big trucking companies to have all the work, which isn't how it works out in the bush. But, when they start to move back into the tribunal around trucking and road requirements, we're going to see less trucks on the road, because it won't be viable for owner-operators to participate anymore, so there'll be an increase in getting that food from the farm to market. Then, of course there'll be fewer trucks to get it to the supermarket. The cost of processing any of that food is going to go up, because the energy costs are so much higher and the big processors, that may get caught up in this safeguard mechanism as it moves, are going to have, again, more costs. By the time it hits the supermarket shelves, you are going to have seen a grocery cost hit at about four to six levels for every single product—every product. People talk about the luxury products. We're not talking about families going in and purchasing their foie gras or their truffle salt; we're talking about people trying to buy bananas, people who might even want to buy some mince and perhaps a tomato to make a bolognaise. We're talking about everyday meals that families have around their table every night, and every single one of those ingredients will be going up.

They're going to keep going up, and not because of the war in Ukraine, as they'd like you to believe. If you listen, it's all about Ukraine. It's funny though, because when we were in government the Ukraine war just started and those opposite were: 'How dare you shift it. How dare you look at this,' apart from the fact there was an oil crisis at the time and there were considerable supply chains being hindered by Russia cutting off gas and oil supply to a number of European countries who had mistakenly put all their eggs in one basket. But, now they're in government, it's a very convenient excuse.

Well, guys, it's not the case. This inflation is Canberra based, like the Prime Minister. The thing about inflation is that every Australian pays it. It is a tax on everybody. It doesn't matter if you're 15-years-old and going down to buy a packet of Twisties or you're a mum of four going to buy the groceries for the week, you pay inflation. It doesn't matter if you're on a welfare payment or you're a multimillionaire, you pay inflation. It is a tax on all Australians. Yet inflation is continuing to go up under this government. It's at the highest level it's been in 30 years. Maybe this is what they're trying to do; they're trying to hit rates we saw in the late seventies, because that's where they want to take our IR policy. That's where they want to take us back to—the pre-Prime Minister Hawke and Keating days. They want to go back. Maybe that's what they're trying to do with unemployment rates. Maybe it's what they want to do with interest rates. Maybe that's what they want to do with inflation. They're certainly not interested in boosting productivity. We know that the one thing, the one lever, that will make a difference to inflation is productivity.

In the last 12 months, what have we seen happen with productivity? How's it going? We had all these promises that it was all going to be great—the cost of living was getting better, inflation was going to come down, mortgages were going to come down, energy bills were coming down, grocery bills were coming down, cost-of-living pressures were coming off for all Australians. But you know what we've seen with productivity in the last 12 months? Under Labor's watch, productivity in the last 12 months, since they came to government, has fallen by 4.6 per cent—cracking job, guys! We've literally come out of a global pandemic which the coalition government steered the Australian economy through; we were one of the few economies that maintained a triple-A credit rating. We actually kept people connected to their workplace and did everything we could to support Australians through unprecedented times. Yet, under this lot, we've seen the one tool we've got to fight inflation, in productivity, fall by 4.6 per cent. That, under your stewardship, is so likely to just get worse.