STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS

Mrs McINTOSH (Lindsay) (13:55): Labor says it stands with workers, Labor says it backs small business, Labor says it's on the side of ordinary Australians, yet somehow it is always the very people Labor claims to stand for who end up paying the price. However, this government is quite happy to stand up for the ATO and to back the Australian Taxation Office over small business—the ATO that's chasing overdue payments from our small business owners that are doing everything they can to stay afloat.

The government thinks that the ATO isn't going to come after these businesses. They think that surcharges aren't going to be absorbed by the business and then passed on to every single consumer in this country who already can barely pay for their groceries and put food on their family's table. We have Australians that are struggling, but we also have these very small businesses that are the backbone of every single local economy in this country.

They are the backbone of this very nation. For a small business, that credit card that they need can be the difference between making payroll and missing it, between getting through a bad month and getting through a bad couple of years under this government and shutting the doors. Suzanne Adams from Glenmore Park is a great woman in my community.

She's a hardworking small-business owner. She's had to raise prices. She's had to cut costs.

She's had to work harder. Australia should be a country where having a go gets you ahead, not squashed by the Albanese Labor government every step of the way.