Senator Nampijinpa Price talks with Bill Woods, Radio 2GB

2 July 2026

Subjects: Small Business; Capital Gains Tax Changes; Cost of Living; Energy Prices; Coalition Policy; One Nation.

E&OE……………

BILL WOODS:

Thank you so much for your time. 

SENATOR JACINTA NAMPIJINPA PRICE:

Well hello Bill, and hello to all your listeners. Thanks for having me. 

BILL WOODS:

What are you hearing from small business these days? What are they telling you? 

SENATOR JACINTA NAMPIJINPA PRICE:

Well, small businesses are beside themselves. They are increasingly worried that they'll have to spend more money and more of their time restructuring their affairs instead of actually being able to invest back into their business instead of being given the opportunity to hire more individuals if they so need for their business to grow, taking on apprentices. There are concerns that around all this restructuring and the cost of compliance, that they may have to either shut up shop — I'm hearing this a lot — businesses that have been around for decades saying it might be time for us to wrap it up now, either that, or take their business abroad and out of Australia, and we don't want to lose that sort of investment and businesses that keep people employed in our country and keep our economy going. But these are the very real concerns that we're hearing from small businesses everywhere we go. 

BILL WOODS:

It's a circular problem too because this broader issue of higher cost of living, which we're all feeling in different ways at different times, but it starts with the cost to businesses of the products or services they produce for us. And a lot of that is the climate at the moment, isn't it? And we'll get onto the regulations and things in a moment, but we're on a platform here, Senator, of, you know, difficulty as it is. 

SENATOR JACINTA NAMPIJINPA PRICE:

It is extraordinarily difficult at the moment for small business. I mean, before these new tax arrangements that have been currently put in place, before having to deal with that, before having to deal with more red tape, businesses were already doing it tough. Like all Australians, the cost of living has been a huge pressure. The cost of doing business has gone up, and it starts with the cost of energy, which pushes up the cost of doing business all around, increases in rent, increases across the board, you know. It's insurance, everything is piling up, so you've got an environment where it's already difficult and you would have thought that even with the backlash to the changes with regard to CGT, the small businesses around the country that have been howling at this government to not go ahead with these changes, even with all of that, with all the pressures that they're under, you would have thought that this government would have stopped to listen to the private sector, to small business, but they simply don't care. As we've seen with the Prime Minister that's prepared to lie to Australians and to small businesses to begin with, they never took these changes to the last election, and all of a sudden businesses are saying, what else are they going to do? Are they going change the goalposts? How many more times are they gonna change the goalposts? It is just an environment of uncertainty which we simply don't need right now. 

BILL WOODS:

Look, I have some figures here. I don't know how fresh they are. You may be able to update them if you have something more current. But I understand that in the last financial year, 25/26, around 14,000 to 14,500 corporate insolvencies were recorded nationwide. Small businesses with fewer than 20 employees accounted for more than three-quarters of those insolvencies. Look, we understand and acknowledge there are people who simply aren't good at running a business. They go into a venture, you know, great on them for having the courage to be an entrepreneur and maybe they're not that good at it, but we're talking about people who really are against the climate of what's taking place at the moment and construction, accommodation and food, they're hardest hit, aren't they, at the moment? 

SENATOR JACINTA NAMPIJINPA PRICE:

They are absolutely hardest hit and look, it's close to nearly 50,000 small businesses that have gone into insolvency since this government came to power. And that is huge. There doesn't seem to be, these figures don't seem to be going backwards at any time. Construction is one of the hardest hit industries, including the hardest hit in terms of the downturn of apprentices within construction as well. And of course these are, I don't know why this government and the Greens treat these businesses like they are, you know, wealthy billionaires, but these are mum and dad businesses just trying to make ends meet, and especially in the construction industry. We want to slash the national construction code from 2,500 pages down to 200, which will also reduce the cost of building a home by about $70,000. But this government is saying that they're trying to build more homes in this country, but it's just not happening when the construction industry is going downhill, and when they're not making the environment any easier for them to be able to construct more homes, and they're not even hitting their targets. 

BILL WOODS:

I love that point you made about the perception of what is a small business, because by the ATO definition, an aggregated turnover of less than $10 million is basically the platform or the cutoff point for small or medium business. Now that is still a huge sector of businesses, isn't it, and I know lots of small business owners who'd love to turn over a tenth of that each year. So it's interesting, isn't it, when a government forms a policy, who do you think they have in mind. As you said, there is this Greens thing that everyone who owns a business is some kind of capitalist, you know, monolith that hates everybody. There's a lot of culture bias in some of these policies, I suspect. 

SENATOR JACINTA NAMPIJINPA PRICE:

There is absolutely culture bias. You know, they've got their union overlords dictating to them how they should create policy ultimately because they're certainly not listening to the private sector and to small businesses. I mean you know over the weekend the Treasurer was asked how many small businesses would be worse off under Labor's new capital gains tax regime. And his answer to that was, it depends on inflation and other factors. I mean, it's just an absolutely extraordinary admission from a Treasurer, asking Australians to trust the fact they have brought about the biggest tax changes in a generation. And again, like I said, I don't know who they're listening to, but they are certainly not listening to small business. 

BILL WOODS:

And the other thing you touched on, and look, what you've mentioned is absolutely huge, but compliance is another thing. And, you know, you might say, well, come on, just follow the rules. But for a very small business where the partner of the person who's running the business and maybe employing one or two people, if that, is just basically a bookkeeper and having to be facing all this red tape, compliance like anti-scam laws, other administrative obligations, I don't think people realise how burdensome these are. They take up precious hours of the week that could be spent actually, as you said earlier, building a better, more profitable business. 

SENATOR JACINTA NAMPIJINPA PRICE:

Yeah, precisely. I mean, they're treating small businesses like they're multinationals who have their own in-house solicitors that can do all this raft of work for them, where we know that they actually can't. And today, you know, Labor and the Greens failed to support our amendment which would have reduced the burden on small businesses. It would delay these new provisions that are coming through to protect consumers. And we're all about protecting consumers, but we would delay these provisions to July 1, 2030, to then ensure that these new laws would work in practice and to give certainty to small business. But they're not interested in relieving small business right now, which means these small businesses are now going to be impacted with over $100 million annual compliance costs which will impact small business because of more provisions that this government has put through with the help of the Greens. 

BILL WOODS:

And look, just for the last word on that, on the text line, Brett says quite rightly, don't forget the outrageous price hike from July 1st for electricity. Again, that is the heart and soul of many businesses, no matter what kind of business they are. Electricity is a major part of their costs, and that's a very good point. Thank you, Brett. Look, I know you're very busy, Senator, and you've got a lot on your plate, but I can't let you go. And to be fair, we've asked everybody on the show who's sitting in parliament this week the same question. How is the Coalition going to create this new identity and win back votes with One Nation surging in popularity?

SENATOR JACINTA NAMPIJINPA PRICE:

Yeah, look, we just have to be consistent. I think we've already established the fact that we've got measures that we want to put to the Australian people. We want to stop bracket creep to make sure that Australians are keeping more of the income that they earn and being taxed less. We want to make sure that we are going to scrap Net Zero. That is what we want to do. We want to scrap Net Zero and ensure that we're investing in all of our natural resources so that we can lower the cost of energy within our country. For small business, we're introducing a $50,000 instant asset write-off and making that permanent. You know, there's so much that we want to do and there's much more that we are planning. Certainly in terms of immigration, we are capping immigration to the number of homes that we're building but there's more in that space that I know Australians want to see that we will deliver ultimately, and it's about ensuring that we are consistent with that message that we have got a plan and we do. And we will be costing our policies to ensure that we're not making it worse. We're setting up a future generation fund so that we can bank our resource windfall, so that we can invest in infrastructure projects around the country, but pay down our debt. So generations to come aren't lumped with that burden. It is up to us to tell the Australian people, to inform them, and to sell the fact that we do have a plan. And we're on board with this. We're absolutely on board with this. 

BILL WOODS:

Well, well said. And on that note, Senator, you've got quite a few fans on the text line and I'll let you get back to work in doing that. Thank you so much for your time. 

SENATOR JACINTA NAMPIJINPA PRICE:

Thank you so much, Bill. 

BILL WOODS:

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, who is the opposition spokesperson for Small Business.

 

[ENDS]