ADDRESS TO PARLIAMENT - PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS - Wages
Here we go again—just another Labor motion taking credit for the sun coming up. It's just nonsense—this whole motion and notion that somehow Labor is there for the low-paid worker. Ask someone like Bruce Billson.
Honourable members interjecting—
Mr McCORMACK: I hear the scoffing. Bruce Billson is a friend of the worker and small business. No-one should criticise the role he plays as the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman. He quite correctly pointed out in a report called Energising enterprise, released on 8 August, 14 steps to improve small and family business, which, I might add, employs some 2.5 million people and generates nearly $600 billion of economic activity. We know that almost 98 per cent of businesses in Australia are small. Small business provides jobs for 5.36 million people, or 42 per cent of the private workforce. What ASBFEO does is ensure those small businesses can employ more people. At the end of the day, that's the name of the game.
Yet go out and ask those people who work for small businesses—not necessarily the people who run the small business but those who work for it—and are they any better off now than they were prior to May 2022? You'll get a resounding 'no'. Look at some of the figures those low-paid and other workers are confronting. Food has gone up by 11 per cent and housing by 15 per cent. That's if you get a house or find rent. Electricity has gone up by 22 per cent. We heard the Prime Minister on no fewer than 97 occasions prior to the election talking about a $275 cut to power bills. Where did that go? Yes, Labor say, 'Well, we're doing $300,' because they picked a figure that was just slightly over $275 and then introduced it two long years after they came into power. I can see those opposite smiling because they know it's the truth; they know what I'm saying is correct.
Honourable members interjecting—
Mr McCORMACK: Gas has gone up by 25 per cent and health by 11 per cent. That's important, because, if you actually get health right, you have the people far happier than they are now. Education has increased by 11 per cent and financial services and insurance by 11 per cent. That's if you can get it, because some insurers aren't that prepared to always pay for services in those flood zones. And Labor comes in with one of these motions saying, 'The sun is shining, all is fantastic, everybody is happy, and the birds are shrill in the trees.' But it's not right, because people have far less disposable income now than when the coalition was in government. We hear the Treasurer so often talk, and all the talking points just do my head in sometimes. They'll come in and go, 'Oh, the Liberal Party—a trillion dollars worth of debt!' It's not just the Liberal Party; it was actually a coalition helped by the Nationals. What we did—
An honourable member interjecting—
Mr McCORMACK: Just listen. This is important. What we did during COVID was save people's lives. That's why a lot of money was spent.
Ms Coker interjecting—
Mr McCORMACK: Yes, Member for Corangamite, it was. It was saving people's lives. But for that assistance, people would have lost their jobs. There would have been soup kitchen and unemployment queues longer than there were in the Great Depression. Homelessness, let alone the health outcomes for the nation, would have been terrible. We saved people's lives.
Nobody in this room was in those meetings that I attended when the Chief Medical Officer said, 'We will lose tens of thousands of people within weeks if something isn't done.' We did it. We should be acknowledged for that—instead of you coming in with these silly notions and silly motions talking about how good you are and puffing out your chests out and saying: 'Well, aren't we good? Low-paid workers are being looked after.' They're not being looked after! They have far less money than they had prior to May 2022. Shame on you all.