CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS

Ms McKENZIE (Flinders) (10:44): Last week, the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party came to my electorate to meet with a large number of small businesses. They came from industries as wide as agriculture, fresh food, tourism, education, health, manufacturing, accountancy services, real estate, renewable energy, transport, events and personal care like hairdressing.

This built on the many one-on-one conversations I had with small businesses within my community, whether that was Ray from Rosebud Plaster; Matt at the Rosebud Book Barn; Chantelle at Petersen's Bookstore in Hastings; Jo Lane, a magnificent artist in both sculptural and visual arts in my community; and the team at Drouin Cafe in Balnarring. They tell me how hard they are doing it at present.

In fact, some tell me that this is as hard as they can ever remember. Some cite the recession of the late eighties and early nineties, when my home state of Victoria was very much on its knees and then Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating was busy telling Australians it was the recession we had to have. At least he was honest, owning the recession that Labor forced upon the Australian people.

Today, Australia's struggling economy is visible to everyone, it would appear, but the Labor government. Red tape, toxic taxes, constant changes to unnavigable rules in critical areas like industrial relations are crushing small businesses across our community. Rampant inflation and 15 interest rate rises aren't just ravaging the household budget; they're undermining confidence in the market and making it much harder for small businesses to thrive.

I come from a community of small businesses. About 98 per cent of all businesses on the Mornington Peninsula have fewer than 20 employees. Many—indeed, most of them—are backed by the home mortgage.

At last look, the price of real estate on the peninsula had crashed by about 10 per cent since the May budget, and that follows a 20 to 30 per cent decline since the COVID peak, meaning anyone who's bought in the last five to six years is now looking at a situation of negative equity. With the start of spring, for sale signs have appeared up and down the peninsula.

Many in this place have a false sense of the wealth of my community, thinking that everyone is a wealthy retiree, but the median household income on the Mornington Peninsula is $1,276 a week versus $1,542 across greater Melbourne. And everything on the peninsula is more expensive. Petrol can cost 20c more on the peninsula than in the city.

Median rent is $50 a week higher than greater Melbourne. And try to get anything delivered to your home and you'll find out that Ben Carroll's promise that we are metro Melbourne is very much not the case and you'll pay double. We earn less and we pay more.

That's why I make sure decision-makers on the coalition side, like Jane Hume, James Paterson and Michael McCormack, come back and hear from my constituents directly.