CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS

Ms STEGGALL (Warringah) (09:42): Small businesses are the backbone of Warringah. Warringah is home to around 8,000 small, employing businesses and another 12,000 sole traders, but many are being squeezed by rising insurance premiums, energy bills, rents, wages, supplies, cybersecurity costs and weak consumer spending. Small-business owners are often working longer, paying themselves far less and absorbing costs they cannot pass on without losing customers.

I've repeatedly raised these pressures in this place. Small businesses do much of the heavy lifting in our economy, and too often they are treated as an afterthought by government. For Warringah's tradies, couriers, mobile service providers and delivery businesses the fluctuating price of fuel is adding to operating costs.

Much more needs to be done to assist business in electrifying and reducing their energy and transport costs, yet local businesses continue to innovate despite these headwinds. Brookvale based Alchemy Charge is building the digital infrastructure that enables electric vehicle charging in strata buildings. More than 4.2 million Australians live in strata communities, but many cannot easily charge an electric vehicle at those locations.

Alchemy Charge is finalising Strata Assist, a national platform designed to help apartment residents and strata communities overcome the approval and practical barriers to installing charging. This is exactly the kind of locally grown innovation Australia should be helping to scale. The government has finally made the instant asset write-off permanent in this recent budget, providing businesses with some certainty, but the $20,000 threshold remains far too low to address all of those pressures and headwinds that I named earlier.

It should be increased to at least $50,000 so businesses can actually invest in productive equipment, cybersecurity, solar, batteries and low-cost electric vehicles. Small businesses also need to be paid on time. Nearly one in three large businesses took more than 30 days to pay their small-business suppliers last year.

Cash flow is essential in a small business. Small businesses should not be forced to act as interest free lenders to much larger companies, and the government can start by setting that example in its own processes. Finally, staffing remains a critical issue for many small businesses.

Any discussion of slashing migration amounts must be assessed against the real impact to industries and areas of business, especially across small business. What I hear about too often in meetings with chambers of commerce and businesses are the challenges, delays and complexity of getting sponsored visas and the delay and uncertainty which makes it impossible for them to plan ahead.

Warringah small businesses are resilient, innovative and ambitious, but the government must do more to reduce unnecessary costs and improve their cash flow and operating business environments.