STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS

Mr HAWKE (Mitchell) (13:42): I rise today to add my voice to all of the small businesses in Western Sydney and Sydney who are suffering under the government's complete bungling of the surcharge fees. We have a government with a Treasury department, a Finance department, the RBA—all of the agencies at their disposal—and they can't work out how to effectively remove the practice of surcharging on consumers.

The Prime Minister had the temerity to tell Australians that every coffee would be cheaper, not recognising that not only had his government not properly provided for this but small and medium businesses in most cases would have to increase the cost of every single coffee to cover their expenses, which were still being charged by credit card companies and financial providers.

And now we hear from the government that their solution is not to get rid of them, not to say, 'Well, we're going to actually ban these charges to small business,' but to subsidise the ATO. Here's a government which bails out big business with taxpayers' money—billions upon billions—because businesses are uncompetitive. They're handing out grants for competition in Australia—paying businesses to compete against other businesses—and now the government are giving a handout to the Australian Taxation Office to administer its surcharge policy.

This is taxpayers' money. This is a complete bungling of our economy by the Treasurer and the Prime Minister. Coffee is not cheaper, surcharging hasn't gone and businesses are suffering.