Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is not my first speech. Small businesses across our country are struggling. Rising cost of living is not just limited to households; it affects small businesses just as much, particularly small family businesses. Australian small businesses and families are yet to see their promised $275 cut to their power bills but they have seen their interest rates raised 11 times in just over a year and have not been given a concrete plan—or any plan, really—from this government to address this crisis. On Tuesday of this week, research published in the AFR found that that 14 per cent of food service firms and 10 per cent of retailers were at high risk of failing over the next year and now, I expect, community pharmacies also.

These industries face a significant threat in this inflationary environment given their unique proximity to the volatility of household discretionary spending. Their costs are going up and their revenue is going down. A decrease in consumer spending due to the cost-of-living crisis has resulted in businesses from farm to plate facing loss of revenue and closure, some within months of opening, or being forced to stay open for extended hours just to make ends meet.

Small businesses in Australia, the backbone of our economy, are already at risk of collapse, and the last thing they need right now is for this government to place increased burdens on them. That is why I was disappointed to read that the Albanese Labor government will be smothering rural and regional businesses who rely on the Pacific-Australian Labour Mobility scheme with unnecessary red tape and increased costs, placing an even greater strain on them. Inflation when left unmanaged as we are seeing now is a disease that infects and rots economies. This government's inability to address inflation must change. (Time expired)