E&OE
[Acknowledgements omitted]
When Robert Menzies formed the Liberal Party in 1944, he created a movement to champion the forgotten people – the middle class.
Among the forgotten people Menzies wanted to represent were the ‘salary-earners, shopkeepers, skilled artisans, professional men and women, farmers and so on’ – as he said in his famous radio broadcast.
He was talking about those Australians which we today refer to as those working in small business.
Menzies was someone who admired the courageous, ambitious and risk-taking Australian.
He knew that the enterprising citizen was the foundation of our national prosperity.
Times have changed, but Menzies’ ethos endures in the Liberal Party.
We proudly remain the party of small and family businesses.
Australia’s 2.5 million small businesses, which employ 5 million people, comprise more than 40 per cent of Australia’s private sector workforce.
Small businesses are the engine room of our economy, the lifeblood of our communities, and the entrepreneurial spirit of our nation.
Menzies also spoke about how employers and employees work in a common enterprise ‘in which neither can succeed without the other’.
The Liberal Party I lead appreciates the talents and contributions of the determined business owner as much as the driven worker.
Just as we are the party of small and family businesses, we are also the party of the worker.
In this, we represent two constituencies who have been forgotten and forsaken by the modern Labor Party.
During the last 22 months, we’ve seen a government in lockstep with the interests of inner-city elites, big business, union bosses, industry super funds and woke advocates.
Consequently, the Albanese Government is pursuing an agenda which is hurting everyday Australian families and businesses, harming our economy, and hindering the longer-term national interest.
Let me give you a few examples and draw a distinction with the Coalition’s approach.
In poll after poll, Australians have consistently ranked financial pressures as their number one concern.
And yet, for the first 16 months of their term, the Prime Minister and his Government were fixated on winning the Voice referendum.
They spent $450 million on the ‘Yes’ campaign but did nothing to alleviate cost-of-living pressures for Australian families or businesses when they were crying out for help.
Because of the Voice debate, the Government made the cost-of-living crisis a second order of business.
The Coalition would never have run such a divisive, costly, and distracting referendum.
Right now, the main priority of government is to get inflation down.
Inflation is running at 3.9 per cent – well above the 2 to 3 per cent target.
Our core inflation is higher than most other comparable economies in the world.
As the Reserve Bank Governor has pointed out, Australia’s inflation is homegrown.
So many small businesses are struggling because inflation is causing every input cost to soar – be it their raw materials, rents, wages, utilities and equipment.
Prices have increased by 8.3 per cent under this Government’s watch.
The Government has now presided over two budgets which have been characterised by inflationary spending, including an additional $209 billion since the election.
Indeed, the Reserve Bank has not once lowered interest rates during Labor’s term.
The Government has lacked the fiscal discipline to ease inflationary pressures.
And because the Government is spending more, it is needing to tax more.
Personal income tax has risen by a record 23 per cent under the Albanese Government’s watch.
The Government’s new carbon tax on vehicles will only push up prices and punish Australians for their vehicle choices.
Many small business owners who need utility vehicles could be forced to fork out thousands of dollars extra for their preferred SUV or ute.
The taxes won’t stop there.
The Government is equivocating about a capital gains tax on the family home and increases to the fringe benefits tax.
To this day, Labor has not ruled out abolishing negative gearing or grandfathering people who have arrangements in place.
With a high taxing agenda, the Government is making a bad situation worse for struggling small businesses.
A Coalition Government under my leadership will adopt a back-to-basics economic agenda.
We will rein in inflationary spending.
And we will have a policy for lower, simpler and fairer taxes.
A huge problem for our nation is productivity.
It has fallen by 5.4 per cent during this Government’s tenure.
Between the last and current Intergenerational Reports, productivity over the next 40 years has been revised down from 1.5 to 1.2 per cent.
The Coalition understands the critical role that small businesses will play in helping to lift productivity and living standards in the decades ahead.
But the Labor Party shows nothing but contempt for small business.
Almost all federal Labor parliamentarians have never run a small business, never risked their own capital, and never hired staff.
They neither understand small business nor appreciate the productivity-boosting role small businesses play in our economy.
The Government’s ignorance of – and ideological opposition towards – small business is exposed in its industrial relations agenda.
The new laws make an IR system steeped in bureaucratic complexity even more bureaucratically complex.
For example, the General Retail Industry Award is more than 90 pages long.
A small business owner must consider six employee classifications, five allowances, six overtime rates, and six penalty rates.
That award was updated seven times in 2023 alone.
As a result of Labor’s changes, small businesses will have to interpret between 15 and 25 steps to determine whether they can employ someone on a casual basis.
Businesses surveyed by COSBOA have said the Government’s IR changes are the number one risk they face.
Indeed, 90 per cent surveyed said they were less likely to employ more staff.
Increased centralised government and union power over our economy is only driving down productivity at a time when we need it to surge.
The Coalition’s vision for the country is to make our nation competitive again and to restore economic confidence.
We will wind-back excessive government intervention which is holding back our economy.
We will remove regulatory roadblocks and stay off the backs of businesses to allow them the freedom to flourish.
And we will look to make our industrial relations system simpler and cooperative – removing the complexity and hostility brought back by Labor at the behest of its union paymasters.
The Coalition understands that, in a developed country like Australia, labour costs will always be higher.
And we want to see sustainable wage growth off-the-back of productivity and economic growth – unlike Labor which calls for wage increases knowing someone else always foots the bill.
I believe the key to increasing our competitiveness and productivity lies in lowering the cost of energy.
Energy is the one input cost that we can exert substantial influence over given our access to an abundance of natural energy sources.
But energy costs are only going to keep increasing under Labor.
During the Albanese Government’s term, electricity and gas prices have gone up by 16 and 26 per cent respectively, especially under its reckless ‘renewables only’ policy.
Some 22,000 solar panels will need to be installed every day and some 40 wind turbines built every month through to 2030.
Additionally, some 28,000 kilometres of new transmission poles and wires will need to be put up by 2050 – the equivalent of almost the entire coastline of mainland Australia.
At a conservative estimate, the transition cost will be $1.3 trillion.
If you think energy is expensive now, wait until these transition costs are passed on to consumers and to small businesses as they start appearing in your power bills.
The Government’s ‘renewables only’ policy is an engineering feat of pure fantasy.
There is zero chance of this roll-out being completed.
And yet, the Government is switching off the old system before the new one is ready.
Indeed, some 90 per cent of baseload power will exit the system by 2034.
Australian businesses are already being asked to ramp-down their energy use in the afternoons so there isn’t overloading on the network.
No other developed country is inflicting this same energy self-harm.
The outlook ten years from now is dire.
Labor, I believe, is pushing us over an energy cliff.
A ‘renewables only’ approach hasn’t worked anywhere else in the world – and it won’t work here in Australia.
Indeed, despite the renewables roll-out, emissions are not coming down under this Government.
Under its current approach, the Government can’t credibly meet its 2050 net zero emissions target.
Australia must be an energy powerhouse if we want to keep manufacturing in this country.
The Prime Minister can talk all he wants about boosting manufacturing and creating Australian jobs in press conferences and photo ops.
But the reality is that businesses are going offshore.
We will end up having to import commodities and products from overseas at a much higher price.
And there will be far more emissions from producing these commodities and products abroad than would have been the case under our clean industry practices.
In short, there is no net benefit to the environment.
I want to see our industries remain onshore and the cost of doing business come down for small businesses across the country.
I want us to build green steel, to have value added to our raw materials, and to grow our resource and defence industry sectors, among others.
But these goals cannot be achieved without cheap, consistent and clean power.
That is why a Coalition Government will ramp-up domestic gas production to make energy more affordable and reliable and to help transition our economy to new energy systems.
And that is why we want Australia to move towards adopting the latest nuclear power technologies.
Nuclear is the only proven technology which emits zero emissions, which can firm up renewables, and which provides cheap, consistent and clean power.
And yet bizarrely, Australia is the only country in the top 20 economies which hasn’t embraced domestic nuclear power or is taking steps to do so.
With nuclear, we can maximise the highest yield of energy per square metre and minimise our environmental footprint.
For example, a Rolls-Royce two-hectare, 470-megawatt nuclear small modular reactor delivers the same output as 4,000 hectares of solar panels.
I will finish on this point:
There are important debates going on in our country right now.
On the cost-of-doing-business, on the economy, on industrial relations, on productivity, on energy – among many other issues.
I meet with CEOs and chairs in private who vigorously express their frustration about the Government’s damaging policies.
Yet in public, their comments lack the same vigour, in many cases, or they choose to remain quiet – many from the fear of a social media backlash.
Luke has been one of the few industry leaders who has bucked the trend. And I commend him for his fortitude in speaking up on the government’s flawed IR legislation.
Our economy is in a precarious position.
This is not a time to be silent or supine.
I believe there is a moral imperative for CEOs to contribute to these important debates.
To return to my earlier remark, the Liberal Party I lead is the party of small and family businesses and the party of the worker.
I will continue to speak up for everyday Australians.
I would encourage more business leaders to do the same – to speak up in the national interest.
Our generation has been gifted a prosperous country because our forebears spoke up with courage and conviction.
It is our duty to do the same in the interest of our children and future generations of Australians.
Thank you very much.
[ends]