Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this very important matter of public importance and to congratulate Senator McGrath for putting this matter before the Senate. As Senator Scarr so rightly pointed out, as I am sure many of us were standing on polling booths on 14 October, a few short days ago, we talked to many hundreds of Australians, and the single most raised issue on those polling booths was not actually the referendum question. People had already made up their minds on that. The single most talked about issue was cost of living and the pressures Australian families find themselves under.

The fact is—and there can be no denying this—that the government have been distracted for the last year. They have been distracted by Prime Minister Albanese's pet project. He had the pen on this referendum. He decided what the question was going to be. He put it to the Australian people and the Australian people comprehensively and correctly rejected that proposal. But, in distracting the government for the past six months, the government has been unable to tackle what is the real and most confronting issue that Australian families are having to deal with, and that is the cost-of-living crisis.

As I always have to do in these contributions, I have to correct some of the mistruths that have come from those opposite once again, particularly on wages. The fact is—and I will say this again to those listening out there; I must have said this about a dozen times in this place already—that real wages grew under the last coalition government. They are declining under this Labor government. Real wages are in fact plummeting at one of the fastest rates in living memory--plummeting.

I will go to another mistruth. In talking about industrial relations, Senator Sheldon talked about the fact that there had been no impact from Labor's disastrous industrial relations legislation. Let's look at what is happening in corporate insolvency for a moment. No impact on business? From the latest corporate insolvency data from ASIC, we see that, in the financial year 2023, there were 7,942 businesses entering administration. Let me say that again: 7,942 businesses in trouble, businesses entering administration. How does that compare to the year before? Senator Scarr, I know you would know. I bet none of those opposite could answer. It was 4,900. In 2022, there were 4,900 businesses in administration. In the 2023 financial year, there were 7,942. And Labor's IR legislation had no impact? Oh, I think it did. I think it has put business under even more pressure.

If we go back another year, there were only 2,000. I say 'only' but, obviously we would like to see no businesses struggling. So we have seen over this period of Labor government the number basically double in the 18 months of their administration, including the passage of the first tranche of IR legislation. We will see further pressure on those small businesses and medium-sized businesses if we see—and hopefully we don't see—the government gets its next tranche of IR legislation through. So we will see even more pressure on those businesses.

The cost of living doesn't just affect Australian households, though it is dramatic—and I am not downplaying the impact on Australian households of the cost-of-living crisis—but also affects business. It affects small- and medium-sized family businesses right across this nation. Discretionary spending goes down and those businesses suffer. The cost of their suppliers goes up in the inflationary environment and those businesses suffer. They want to keep their workers on. They want to give their workers a pay rise, absolutely, but the pressure those businesses are under at the moment is extreme. If the Labor government doesn't understand that, then heaven help Australian businesses.