QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS

Senator COLLINS (New South Wales—Deputy Opposition Whip in the Senate) (15:28): I will respond directly to Senator Sterle. We do love truckies. We never said we didn't love truckies.

In fact, I was with Angus Taylor just three weeks ago, up on the Central Coast, at a trucking company, talking about the hard time that that trucking company has had, with the regulations and the fuel prices, and with, every single day, the cost of compliance going up and up and up for the trucking companies that are just trying to make a living and move things around Australia for Australian families.

We listen to them. We consult with them. But that is the difference between the coalition and the Labor government.

We go out there and we talk to them and we say, 'Hey, what's going on? How can we make life better for you?' That is why we come back with policies and a plan—and we do have policies in here for the trucking companies and the fuel excise and the price shield that will bring down the cost of fuel when the price spikes, when crises, like the one that is happening in the Middle East, affect the Australian economy.

We do help. I want to stick on small business. We heard from the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Wong, that our claims about small business and the punching down on small business were rhetoric.

Again, we are out there every single day talking to small business. The leader of the coalition has been all around Australia holding small-business forums and hearing directly from them. We hear from Minister Wong that they are doing everything they can for small business and that all these small businesses are opening.

They don't dare to mention all the small businesses that are closing—50,000 under Labor. There are 50,000 businesses closing. These are the people that are taking a risk to build a better future for their children and their families.

They are taking a risk to grow this economy and to grow the prosperity of this nation, and Labor are simply not backing them in. They hit them with taxes. They hit them with higher power bills.

They hit them with compliance costs. They hit them with credit card surcharge bans. They think that, just because you say the surcharge is not there, everything is all of a sudden free.

Well, somebody has to pay for it, and guess what? That is that small business—those families out there taking the risk for us and for our nation. They're trying to pit small business against working Australians, as though small-business families aren't working for this great nation.

I'll tell you what: they're out there working seven days a week. The reason we are in here in the chamber giving small business a voice every single time is that they're too busy out there working. They don't have time to stop and protest and make their voice heard.

So, again, we go out there and we listen to them. We heard today from Senator Nampijinpa Price that there is fresh data estimating that small and family businesses will face up to $13.3 billion in restructuring fees and tax advice to deal with the changes of this government. Labor don't care.

They don't care about that. All they care about is the $4.5 billion that they're going to raise from these tax changes—$4.5 billion—and they think that small business will cope with that. Well, they simply won't.

This will be the straw that breaks the camel's back. I want to say to all the small businesses out there: we back you in.