STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS

Ms BELL (Moncrieff) (13:54): Labor should be backing small business, not breaking it. Nobody likes card surcharges, but you can't make a cost disappear just because it's no longer on the receipt. It has to go somewhere.

Every time a customer taps their card, someone pays to process that transaction. It's either absorbed by the business or passed right back to the consumer through—you guessed it—higher prices. That's what we've seen.

The government promised savings every time Australians tap, yet businesses are warning prices have risen and will rise. So much for cost-of-living relief from this government. On the day of the ban, the ATO announced it would stop accepting card payments.

If the ATO can't absorb the cost, why should small and family businesses? Now Labor has delayed the pain until June next year. Instead of delaying it, they should scrap this botched plan altogether.

Having already endured four years of higher taxes, higher energy bills and higher inflation, and now this botched credit card ban, 30 Aussie businesses are going bust every single day—that's 30 livelihoods; 30 families. Small businesses don't need another year of uncertainty. They need a government with a plan to fix the economy and protect our way of life, and that starts by backing small business.