.svg)
Senator KOVACIC (New South Wales) (19:35): During estimates and once again today during question time, Minister for Finance Katy Gallagher told Australians that the record number of business insolvencies under the Albanese Labor government was proportionate. This dismissive response fails to understand the real and human toll behind these business closures. For the business owners and their employees, there is no such thing as a proportionate loss. Each failure is a devastating blow to an individual's or family's financial stability, and to their enormous efforts in starting and building a family business.
Despite the minister's claims that the government is committed to supporting small businesses, new data released today by CreditorWatch, a commercial credit reporting agency, paints a far different picture. The figures show that more than one in 20 businesses are now failing—a shocking 25 per cent increase in insolvencies compared to pre-2020 levels. The industries most affected remain retail, hospitality and construction. In fact, more than 4,000 construction businesses have collapsed in just the last two years. This contributes to the skyrocketing costs in housing construction which are only exacerbating our national housing crisis. Where are these failures concentrated? Small businesses in Western Sydney. Areas like Maryland, Canterbury, Bringelly and Bankstown are bearing the brunt, with almost eight per cent of businesses closing their doors. Yet their local Labor representatives remain largely silent, burying their heads with a 'nothing to see here' attitude as their communities struggle. Instead of focusing on the cost-of-living and the cost-of-doing-business crises, instead of working to improve the lives of business owners and employees in his own community, the member for McMahon is busy undermining our AUKUS allies. In Watson, the former employment and workplace relations minister has left kilometres and kilometres of new industrial red tape behind him as he has moved on to the Home Affairs portfolio. Neither have spoken about pointing to these failures being proportionate—we know for a fact that they weren't. They know there is a big problem, but—as usual—Labor continues to take Western Sydney for granted. It's time for that to stop.
Today in question time Minister Gallagher accused the coalition of failing to support feminised industries, yet it is under the watch of this government that sectors with a high proportion of female workers, like retail and hospitality, are being decimated. It is brutally unfair to tell these women who rely on these jobs or who have started these businesses that the closures and losses are proportionate. That's not okay. I should note that women make up the majority of retail and hospitality workers, but workers in these industries also have a median age of 33 and 22 respectively. It is young women who are the most affected.
I know the government will hate to hear this, but I note that under the watch of this government young people are officially worse off today than their parents and grandparents. The Productivity Commission found that Australians born after 1990—I have three children: one born in 1990, one in 1991 and the other in 1993—have the lowest disposable income of any generation in their youth since the Second World War. The Commonwealth Bank has also revealed that Australians between the ages of 18 and 39 have gone backwards in essential and discretionary spending. If all this wasn't bad enough, I also note Australia is suffering through the longest and worst per capita recession in our country's history—something the government is desperate to run away from. Interestingly it was only a few years ago that then Labor shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen said that Australia entering a per capita recession just once was 'a damning indictment of the coalition government's economic stewardship'. If one quarter of per capita recession is a damning indictment, then six quarters must be a profound economic cataclysm. Amid all of this, we have a Treasurer still deflecting blame for the prolonged period of high interest rates. This is despite the Reserve Bank of Australia repeatedly urging the government to curb its reckless spending. (Time expired)