Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A letter has been received from Senator O'Sullivan:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I propose that the following matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I propose that the following matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion:

Labor's policies and failed economic management are driving dual cost of living and cost of doing business crises, with business insolvencies increasing and many small businesses struggling to stay afloat.

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank my colleagues for the overwhelming support for this matter of public importance. It is, of course, of significant public importance because Australians are significantly hurting right now. It doesn't matter where you go in this country, it doesn't matter what part of the state you might come from or go into, you recognise that Australians are significantly hurting. Many would say the cost-of-living pressures on Australian households is being felt like never before in their lifetimes—they have not experienced it—particularly if they are under the age of, say, 30 or 40 years of age. If you are older than that then of course you would remember the recession in the early nineties and, for those who are older, even beyond that. But there are many factors that are contributing to this cost-of-living pressure. Of course, the government is mishandling the budget. That's why we're seeing an increase in government spending. The size of government has grown as a result. There's quantitative easing. As a result, we're seeing interest rates rise, and the cycle continues. We've got a problem going on in this country where wages are chasing inflation and inflation is chasing wages. It's a cyclical chasing-the-tail kind of scenario, and this government is doing nothing about it.

But there is one thing that is contributing negatively that this government could do something about but they have spent way too long on. Finally, we've got a bill before this place that's going to somewhat deal with the challenge before us. That is of course the declining productivity as a result of the overbearing influence of the CFMEU in construction workplaces across Australia. We're seeing the price of Australian homes impacted. The Master Builders Association says up to 30 per cent of the cost of building a home has been influenced by the undue influence of the CFMEU on work construction sites across the country.

That flows into roads and major construction projects across the country. We've got the METRONET in Western Australia, with huge cost overruns. They are partly to do with the poor management of that project by the state Labor government. They are also partly to do with the cost of supplies and supply chain issues and pressures that are on those projects. But we know that there's undue influence of the unions—the CFMEU, in particular—within these construction projects. I've spoken to construction companies. The government say it's not as big an issue in Western Australia. Well, talk to any major construction company or minor construction company in Western Australia. They'll tell you that the CFMEU is certainly alive and well and there's no problem with having a union at all but, when you've got a union that is exerting pressure within construction sites and projects across the country—and we know that there has been gross evidence of impropriety; there have been payments, coercion, thuggery and intimidation—all of this impacts upon the costs of doing business in this country. As I said, the cost of living is the biggest issue that Australians are facing. We need services that are delivered, we need hospitals to be built, we need roads to be built, we need new houses to be built, and we need new residential units to be built. When you've got undue influence—illegal influence in many cases, as we've seen—then that impacts upon the cost of delivering those projects, which then impacts upon inflation because the government has to continue to build those projects. So what do they do? They just increase the size of the grant that goes to the state or that particular project, which again impacts upon inflation.

So the government can't just stand by and pretend or say all the words that would seem like they're in touch with what's going on; they actually need to do something about it. This government is asleep at the wheel when it comes to managing this economy. One way they can deal with it is by dealing with the CFMEU. (Time expired)

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When the Albanese Labor government came into office, inflation had a '6' in front of it. I think the former speaker in his contribution was a little bit liberal with the truth there, because it had a '6' in front of it and now it has a '3' in front of it. That's called progress. We're bringing inflation down. But those opposite always want to talk the economy down. They always want to talk about the cost of living in this place. But, when it comes to supporting legislation which is going to help Australians dealing with the cost of living, what do they actually do? They vote against the legislation. What did they do when we introduced legislation for the Future Fund to provide social and affordable housing? What did they do with that legislation? They voted against it because Mr Dutton said no.

What did they do when they were in government? They had a policy to keep wages low for Australian workers. So what did they do when we legislated for aged-care workers to get a pay increase? What did they do? Mr Dutton said no and they voted against it. What did they do when we brought in legislation to support disability workers getting a pay rise? What did they do then? They again said no, because that's what Mr Dutton told them to do. So they voted against it. What did they do for early childhood educators in this country to help them deal with the cost of living, but also to demonstrate respect and acknowledgment of the important work that early educators in this country do for our children, our greatest asset? They voted against that as well.

The Australian tax office, on 1 July, gave all working Australians a tax cut. The majority of low-income earners in this country got twice the amount of money that those opposite had legislated when they were in government. So don't come into the chamber bleating and pretending that you are concerned about the impact of the cost of living on the Australian people when you keep saying no. The thing that Mr Dutton is known for, apart from being the worst-ever health minister, is for saying no, no, no. That's all he does. He says no, no, no.

Let's talk about the energy rebate—$300 to every household in this country. And what did those on that side do to that legislation? They said no to a rebate of $300 for every household in this country, and they also said no to the rebate for small businesses. If those opposite had any real concern for Australians who are doing it tough—we do. We understand because we talk to Australian workers, we talk to people in our communities, and we know how tough it is. Those opposite pretend that they're the great economic managers, but it is this Labor government, the Albanese Labor government, that has had back-to-back surpluses—the first time in almost two decades. We have done that. We have created almost a million jobs, and the majority of them full-time jobs, in this country. Why? Because Labor governments always protect Australian workers. We always stand with them, unlike those opposite.

Why do those opposite like tearing down a Labor government? Why do they like to run the economy down? Why don't they want to support any assistance that we have put forward? It is just blatant political opportunism. When we froze for a year any price increases on medications, and then reduced the cost of medications, what did those people on that side, the Liberals and the Nationals, do? They voted against it. Your actions actually speak louder than words. And we know when it comes to energy, Mr Dutton, who was the worst-ever health minister, has this idea of building nuclear reactors around the country. Nobody wants them in their backyard. (Time expired)

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Millions of Australians are getting smashed by high inflation and high interest rates. They can't pay their rents, they can't pay their mortgages, they can't put food on the table and they can't pay their power bills. But do you know who loves the current economic climate? Big corporations. The share of the national economy going to wages has never been lower, and the share of the national economy going to profits has never been higher. Big corporations are profiting obscenely at the moment, and millions of Australians are getting price gouged by those big corporations.

And what is the Labor Party, which is in government, doing about it? Absolutely nothing. It's refusing to implement strong competition laws. It's refusing to make price gouging illegal. It's refusing to introduce laws that would allow us to bust-up the supermarket duopoly and end the price gouging on food and groceries. It even refused to properly tax those corporations that are making obscene profits. One in three of the biggest corporations in this country pay no tax whatsoever. What does that mean? It means ordinary, everyday Australians are being left behind because the big corporates have got their hooks into the political establishment parties in this parliament.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There doesn't seem to be a debate that Australians are struggling with the cost of living right now; everyone realises that. Where the debate does need to shift to is the reasons why that's occurring and, therefore, what we have to do to get out of it. Something that is barely ever mentioned in this debate, certainly not from the government benches, is our shocking productivity performance in this crisis. We have had a decade or so now of stagnant productivity growth that's been shared by most other countries around the world. The chickens have been coming home to roost in the last few years because we've been spending too much money, we spent too much during the COVID era, our interest rates have been low and that has stimulated a lot of spending in our economy, but, because our productivity has been low, we haven't been producing as much goods to meet that spending, to meet that demand. Inflation is always the phenomenon that occurs when you have too much money, in this case too much spending—government spending, low interest rates, fuel spending, chasing too few goods.

So the real sustainable solution out of this problem is to produce more goods from our economy. If we can lift our productivity, if we can lift the rate at which we can produce things from the natural resources we are blessed with in this country then we'll get out of this inflation faster and with a lot less pain than would come by simply jacking up interest rates to stop and to choke off that excess spending. Yet there is almost zero focus on this, as I say, especially from the government. This phenomenon of low productivity growth is a tough one but is one that's been well-known for some time, yet, when this government came to power, they had a Jobs and Skills Summit within months of forming government. They spent a lot of money and time marketing this Jobs and Skills Summit but they forgot—quite perplexingly—to invite the Productivity Commission along to their Jobs and Skills Summit. It was not an auspicious start from this government but, right from the get-go, they've had zero productivity agenda. We now have the situation where the Productivity Commission has just one referred inquiry to it—a historic low, as far as I can tell. They couldn't tell me a time at estimates where they had fewer inquiries referred to them by the government. There is no focus on this right now. It is tough work but it's not overly complex.

What we need to do is cut red tape, cut inefficiency in government, make sure we approve in a timely fashion those businesses and companies that want to invest in our country. We have seen an example of that just in the last few days on the front pages of major papers, with this government inexplicably refusing approval, or really avoiding approval of a gold mine in Western New South Wales. It was nothing to do with fossil fuels—so controversial right now—but was a gold mine at a time of record gold prices that would have created thousands of jobs in and around Orange in western New South Wales, that would have created massive investment in our country and lifted our productivity, because we would have produced more goods—more gold in this case—from the same natural resources we have.

This project was approved under environmental laws at both state and federal level yet we had the environment minister over the weekend step into it and use a relatively arcane law from the mid-1980s to stop the project, to stop the investment. Today that company has said to the market that this potentially threatens their whole project and potentially much other investment in Australia. This is just one example but there is a litany of examples. Buybacks are occurring in the Murray-Darling, where we are taking food production out of business to send more water down an already flooded river, again, reducing our productivity. There is a shocking lack of approvals on gas projects around the country limiting our production of energy and bringing energy costs down. There is an inexplicable subsidy of swathes of wind factories and solar factories going onto prime agricultural land across Australia—again, reducing our nation's productivity. The Labor Party has retreated back to 1970s industrial relations laws—stuff that goes back further than what Paul Keating had changed in the 1980s—again, limiting our efficiency and productivity. All of those decisions will add up to a massive cost to the Australian economy by reducing our productivity, reducing our prosperity and ultimately manifesting in inflation and cost-of-living pressures if the government continues its spending like a drunken sailor. That is the change we need from this government. We need to get them to realise they have to stop playing politics and focus on the productivity. That's the only way out of this cost-of-living crisis.

Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a great suggestion to put up and have a debate today about the cost of living. When reading this suggestion on what we should be discussing today, I thought about small business struggling to stay afloat. That is a critically important issue. We need to make sure that small business has the opportunities to operate efficiently, effectively, get a fair return and to not be exposed to unsafe practices, not be exploited by those at the top of the supply chain or the companies they work for. That's something I hold very dear, because I've been lucky enough to be the national secretary of the largest small business organisation in this country, the Transport Workers Union.

Among the discussions and debates we've had over many decades is something that's been fundamentally opposed by those opposite, and that is giving small business rights. When the gig economy legislation came up, those opposite argued time and time again about gig workers not getting minimum standards. Here are people providing the labour and the low-cost equipment, yet they're turning around and getting paid such pitiful amounts of money that they have to work extraordinary hours. And, when those companies decrease their rates further, they find them working even more extraordinary hours.

A survey of well over 1,000 riders from just over two years ago showed that 74 per cent of respondents used multiple apps to receive enough jobs and money. But what the report most importantly said is that 81 per cent of the respondents depend on the money they earn from ride share, food delivery or parcel delivery to pay bills and survive. What that leads to, in these important statistics, is that 55 per cent of the total respondents have experienced threatening or abusive behaviour, with 43 per cent noting the risk of being abused by a customer is a significant concern.

Why do they all do that? It makes you wonder. Over 45 per cent of those workers receive less than minimum wage. They've got a choice: they either work extraordinary hours, put up with the abuse—and they have poor rates of pay, as owner drivers, as gig workers. They get such little amounts of money that they have to keep putting up with the abuse. They have to keep receiving these poor wages. And those poor wages mean they have to work more and more extraordinary hours.

What we saw leading up to the very important legislation making sure that very small businesses, microbusinesses, get minimum rights and conditions against the big, powerful gig companies, the Ubers of this world, who engage nearly 120,000 workers across this country—what they have to put up with is a bargaining position. I'll go back to 2021, when Senator Stoker, who is thankfully no longer here, said contractors are able to take time off work and can go work for somebody else if they're not happy with the money they get paid; they can just seek employment elsewhere. And then we saw Christian Porter, the then minister, saying that there are complicated questions which need consideration for economic modelling about if you can turn around and give these workers rights. So it was too complicated to turn around and give minimum conditions to contractors. And then, of course, in 2022, the opposition spokesperson on industrial relations, Senator Cash, talked about how the gig economy is an opportunity for independent contractors to have the freedom of flexibility to enter into contracts, negotiate their own rates of pay, set their own times and duration of work.

Well, the reality is they can't set them. The companies just tell them: 'This is what it is. This is the rate of pay you're going to get paid.' What those companies do is, when somebody speaks up, they sack them. In January 2024—and there is a long list of examples—delivery rider Zhuoying Wang took her concerns about low pay and rider safer to HungryPanda while taking part in a peaceful protest in Sydney CBD. Instead of sacking her, HungryPanda simply stopped giving her orders. In 100 hours logged on to work she earned just $84. That's 84c an hour for 100 hours. That's why we need to go to the commission. That's why they need to have rights to say that they shouldn't be treated that way. That's why these microbusinesses should have an opportunity to be union represented. The workers should also be able to represent themselves through a system that gives them a voice. Zhuoying said:

I spoke out about it and tried to talk to the company, to ask for help. I never engaged in unlawful behaviour. I just wanted a fairer, safer job.

That's what we voted for, and that's what those opposite voted against.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, I couldn't believe my ears last week. The Albanese Labor government burst out of the gates to tell Australians to celebrate and rejoice: wages had gone up 0.8 per cent for the quarter. The Treasurer and Prime Minister tell us: 'Pop the champagne bottles! Just ignore the fact that inflation has gone up one per cent for the same quarter.' That means everyone has gone backwards an average of 0.2 per cent. Can you believe the Treasurer and Prime Minister can bring themselves to front up to the cameras to address this parliament and put such a ridiculous spin on the latest round of bad news? How do they do it? How does the Labor Party keep telling Australians we've never had it better, while Australians struggle through the worst cost-of-living crisis in modern history? The GDP is treading water; it's barely staying out of technical recession. How is it staying out? Thanks to one million fresh migrant arrivals in just two years, boosting official gross domestic product, GDP, to just barely over the recession threshold.

Meanwhile, let's look at how everyday Australians are faring. We're in the middle of the worst per capita recession since the Great Depression. Australians have not gone backwards on average this badly since the 1930s—almost a century. What is the Liberal-Labor uniparty's answer to this? The uniparty will continue to send our natural resources overseas for China to use in building solar panels that China sells back to us. The uniparty will continue to obey what unelected foreign organisations like the World Economic Forum say. The uniparty will keep letting foreign predatory investment funds like BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street, and banks like JP Morgan, own our critical industries and get away with economic murder. The uniparty will continue to let too many new arrivals into our country before we have the necessary housing and services, prolonging the housing crisis that the uniparty created over recent decades. The housing crisis did not occur overnight; it's been cultivated. Only One Nation will stop this madness and put an end to anti-Australia decisions that are sending our people backwards. (Time expired)

Penny Allman-Payne (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For so many Queenslanders, every day it feels like life gets harder while Labor and the LNP put corporate profits ahead of everyday people. Rents are continually going up, yet Labor refuses to freeze and cap rents to allow wages to catch up. Bulk-billing doctors are hard to find. People are avoiding seeing the dentist because of how expensive it is. Your grocery bills keep going up. Queenslanders deserve better. But nothing changes if nothing changes.

In October, Queenslanders have the chance to get real change by electing someone who will fight for them. A vote for the Greens in Queensland is a vote to address the cost of living by freezing rents for two years, capping rent increases and giving renters a guaranteed right to a lease renewal. A vote for the Greens in Queensland is a vote to build 100,000 well-designed public homes to rent or buy for below market rate. A vote for the Greens in Queensland is a vote to tackle the cost of living for families by making public schools fully funded and truly free. A vote for the Greens in Queensland is a vote to take back into public ownership the essential services that Labor and the LNP have privatised. The Greens have a plan to tackle the cost-of-living crisis for Queenslanders. If Queenslanders want change, they're going to have to vote for it.

Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Western Australian businesses are sinking under the weight of a cost-of-doing-business crisis. Already we know that 97 per cent of all businesses in Western Australia are small businesses. We also know that 1,079 businesses became insolvent in the last financial year. In the June quarter, 308 companies in Western Australia went insolvent. That is one every seven hours.

When Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister; and Jim Chalmers come to Western Australia in the week beginning 2 September, I want them to go to WA small businesses and explain why our rigid industrial relations system, labour shortages, the high cost of credit, regulatory overload, and inflationary pressures on business inputs are matters that they think do not deserve the attention of the government.

Just last week, the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman had this to say about the pressures that small businesses are feeling. He said, 'The number of corporate insolvencies climbs towards a 10-year high.' He says that requests for help from small- and family-business owners seeking assistance with insolvency have increased by over 50 per cent this year. These include people 'considering insolvencies and those who are concerned that an insolvent business owes them money'. He goes on to say:

Requests for help from small businesses in financial distress in retail trade and personal services (e.g., hairdressing) have surged since January 2024. As well as being highly distressing for the people involved, these requests are often an early warning sign of tightening trade credit.

That's the advice. That's the bleak warning from the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman.

It gets worse. The Reserve Bank of Australia said earlier this month that things are getting tough for businesses. The Reserve Bank has said, 'The outlook remains highly uncertain.' The Reserve Bank says that the unemployment rate is rising gradually, many households and businesses are under pressure and the lagged effects of monetary policy are uncertain. What that means is that things are going to get worse. But, as we heard in this Senate chamber last week, the government doesn't think there's a problem. The government thinks the cost-of-living and cost-of-doing-business crises are manufactured. That's not the view of the RBA and it's not the view of the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman.

The Reserve Bank of Australia goes on to say that financial conditions have tightened for businesses over the tightening phase. It says: 'The cost of business to borrow from banks and issue corporate bonds has increased substantially since April 2022. Tighter monetary policy since May 2022 has passed through to higher rates on new and variable rate debt for businesses.' The future looks very bleak.

What's more concerning about this is that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Dr Jim Chalmers said that this would not be the case, when they were campaigning for election to secure government. Anthony Albanese said that things would be better under Labor. They have not been better under Labor, and Western Australian businesses are now paying a very high price for it. Added to this, of course, is the fact that household savings ratios are now the lowest they have been for 16 years, at just 0.9 per cent. It is bleak for families and it is bleak for businesses. The Labor Party, in government, doesn't have a plan and it doesn't care.

When Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Dr Jim Chalmers come to Western Australia in a few weeks' time, they need to explain to WA businesses why their future is not bleak, and why they can have some confidence to employ people, open bigger businesses or to even just stay in business. Labor has let Western Australian businesses down, and the data shows it.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time for the discussion has expired.