Ben Small
Forrest · Liberal Party · Australia
“My question is to the Prime Minister. Aussie legend Joseph Daoud spent $17½ thousand of his own money on billboards telling the Labor government to drop their ambition taxes. He's paid up again, winning an auctioned tennis match at the Lodge to get the Prime Minister's attention.”
“What creates that situation is where people are forced into a choice no Australian should have to make—a choice between getting care or keeping up with the bills. That's just not good enough.”
“Health care in this country, despite the press releases and the political spin, is under real pressure. In regional communities like mine, the pressure continues to mount on families who simply can't afford it. We're seeing hospitals under strain and emergency departments stretched thin.”
“I was recently contacted by Kim in my electorate who shared his telling experience with our local healthcare system. Kim doesn't need to see a doctor very often, but, on this occasion, he required a basic consultation by phone. He was told that it would cost him $75 for a few minutes on the phone.”
“The dissenting report the coalition has tabled in response to this details a litany of gross overreach on the part of this partisan witch-hunt because, ultimately, this is anything but a fair, balanced and impartial approach to assessing the feedback of the Australian community that we saw in the wake of the 2025 federal election.”
“By leave—Unfortunately, I stand here today to convey to the House that the coalition's position is that one of the most serious committees in the parliament has been reduced to a one-eyed, hyperpartisan witch-hunt of a group of religious Australians.”
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“They don't send us here to simply argue over the latest way to dole out more and more borrowed money, adding to a debt that will be paid by our children and our grandchildren. Nobody seems inclined to remind Australians that, just as our forebears learned, we simply cannot turn to government to solve all of our problems, and I hope to lend my voice to this timeless principle. Government shouldn't compete with an efficient and wealth-creating private sector or pick winners with taxpayer money, because it isn't fair that a business should have to compete against a government backed entity that faces no pressure to be profitable and no risk of bankruptcy and is backed by your tax dollar. So government must enable private enterprise, not shackle it, because it is business, small and large, that pays wages and generates wealth in this country.”
“They've never marched through the streets of a city with superglue and snorkels. But they do value honesty in political leadership, and they quietly nod their heads in the lounge room when a politician on TV actually talks some sense. So I'm convinced that political leadership at its best is capable of making the tough decisions whilst carrying the day with reasoned, rational and respectful argument. Australians are no longer listening to political leaders who simply parrot back popular sentiment to the public at large. Indeed, many are yearning for leaders who will take a stance, even where it is a stance with which they disagree. Australians, especially in regional electorates like mine, are crying out for leadership that will truly lift our country and again enliven our communities.”
“Every dollar we take off a person or a business reduces the incentive to strive for all, and we must remember that the taxpayer is not an imaginary money tree. Taxpayers are real people, and I particularly shudder at the thought of taking money from a tradie, nurse or teacher and giving it to for-profit companies in the name of some fashionable cause. Whenever we speak of subsidy, commission, plan or initiative in this place, we've got to have the courage to look those tradies, teachers and nurses in the eye and explain why we're taking more of the money that they've earned for themselves and their families. Those hardworking Australians don't live on Twitter, I don't think they always read the paper and they almost certainly aren't members of a political party.”
“With almost one in two employees in Australia working in a small business of fewer than 20 staff, most bosses are in fact tradies, restaurateurs, retailers or farmers, working side by side day after day, starting early and staying late. These are the relationships that have built modern Australia. Businesses in a modern economy have their interests best served by engaged, agile, freethinking and committed employees. Those same staff benefit in term from the superior business performance of an organisation that has the flexibility to change, adapt, trade and prosper. To me, the idea that we need more government red tape between an employer and an employee too often stops people hiring at all, whereas simplicity, certainty and flexibility create opportunity for all Australians.”
“The false caricature of aristocratic bosses rapaciously exploiting the downtrodden, the vulnerable and the weak in the relentless pursuit of ill-gotten gains is, quite frankly, centuries out of date because such a view denies a fundamental premise of modern Australia, and that's that most Aussies are fair minded and hardworking, whether they be employees or employers. Like millions of Australians, I had a dream of building my own small business, which grew to employ more than 30 people, including a number who were registered with a disability services agency. I know what it means when we speak of the best form of welfare being a job, and I am particularly proud that one of my former workers has even gone on to start his own small business, which continues to grow today.”
“In realising such a vision, I hold one thing to be self-evident, and that's that, to change the Australia of tomorrow, we must first understand the Australia of today and accept the Australia of yesterday—as it is, as it was and not how we might have wanted it to be. The more that we obsess over symbolism as a way to alter the past, the less that is said about changing lives in Australia today and the more deafening is the silence about affording all Australians greater opportunity tomorrow. Matters of employment are of great personal interest to me, not only as a compassionate person who believes in the dignity of work but also as a small-business owner who has had direct experience of hiring hardworking Australians and seeing firsthand both the social and economic benefits that work provides.”
“Almost every business has input costs associated with its people, the power it uses and, of course, compliance. We want highly paid employees in this country, but business is drowning in stifling red tape and regulation while also being crippled by higher and higher energy prices. We are slowly sleepwalking as a country into decline, as investment capital flees our shores whilst we become less and less competitive, with lower and lower productivity. Yet I see limitless potential for an Australia that is bolder, braver and more bountiful as a nation, and I am convinced that deep within our communities is the pride and passion to achieve more for our country and for each Australian to achieve their potential, to maintain a safety net for those deserving a hand up, and to again become a country of 'can'.”
“I've seen so many grieving families on their worst days, but, on mine, seeing my mum holding my dead sister's babies in her arms is an image seared in my mind. For me, this perspective anchors the political struggles that play out each day in this building against what really matters in life, especially the value of those incredible people who share our journey in life and to whom in our busy lives we don't often pay enough care and attention. I couldn't possibly rise in the House today without acknowledging the people that have supported me, shaped me and changed me through the many chapters of my story so far. You all know who you are, and I want you to know how much you mean to me even if I don't say it anywhere near often enough. Today, Australia is brought to you by the word 'can't'. You can't do it, and you can't say it.”
“These are my people, and I am lucky enough to stand in this House representing a corner of Australia where they abound. My predecessors Nola Marino and Geoff Prosser typified the best of those Australians, and I pay tribute to their decades of service in this place. Loss has forced me to look at life a little differently from perhaps how I once did. I've experienced loss in political terms, so my place will never be with Teddy Roosevelt's 'cold and timid souls' who know 'neither victory nor defeat', as my 18 months in the Senate was just long enough to see how government could work for Australians but so often doesn't. More profoundly, though, the sudden death of my younger sister at the age of just 30 has taken me years to process fully.”
“These are the people that I have come to this place to fight for: those Australians who are prepared to have a little less today so that their kids might have a little more tomorrow; those Australians who put it all on the line to start a business to create something and to provide opportunities to others; those Australians who are optimistic that their hard work will be rewarded but stoic when it doesn't quite pan out, getting straight back up off the mat to have another go; those Australians who, without second thought or notion of personal gain, pull on a uniform and volunteer to serve our fellow countrymen in whatever their hour of need; and those Australians who would sooner join a committee, become the secretary or roll up their sleeves at a busy bee than see the death of yet another community organisation.”
“So I will walk out of this place for the last time.' For what seemed an eternity—and was, in fact, something like 45 agonising minutes—this incredibly frail figure slowly hauled himself out of bed and then dragged himself down that corridor, using only the wall for support, one foot in front of the other in front of the other. Giuseppe collapsed on the front porch, having walked out of his house for the very last time. I recount this story to the House, as I did to the Senate, for a simple reason. Giuseppe's story, in aggregate, has made our nation what it is today. So we stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us: those who weren't afraid to work hard, take risks, care for their families and embrace their communities, and who were resilient in the face of adversities that my generation can barely comprehend.”
“Keeping my game face on, despite the relatively confronting scene, I breezily introduced myself and informed Giuseppe that we were going to whizz him onto our stretcher and then pop him up to the hospital, at which point the emaciated figure said quietly, 'No, you won't.' Trying to hide my surprise, I inquired as to how Giuseppe fancied getting to hospital if it wasn't with our help. He said: 'Son, I came to this country before you were born. I built this house myself and I have spent 25 years here raising my family.”
“Some 15 years ago I was on duty as a volunteer ambulance officer in Bunbury when my partner and I were dispatched to transfer a dying cancer patient from home to the palliative unit at the local hospital. It wasn't one of the countless lights-and-sirens adrenaline-pumping medical emergencies that I was tasked with in my time in green, but little did I know that one of the more profound experiences of my life would take place in the next hour. Arriving at the house, we discovered that the patient was from a large migrant Italian family, so we'll call him Giuseppe. He was in a bedroom by himself at the back of the house. Lumbering down a long corridor with heavy bags of medical equipment, I bowled into the darkened room and was frankly shocked to find a shadow of a man lying on the bed.”
“As I was saying, it seems like the only fitting way to begin my first speech to the House, some three years after leaving the Senate. But, as most members of the House would probably admit in a quiet moment, we don't always pay much attention to what goes on in the other place, making it quite appropriate for me to reintroduce myself all over again now I'm standing here on the green carpet. Politics is a contact sport, and, in making the decision to campaign for a return to Canberra, many people asked me why I wanted to join the fray once more. Aside from feeling like I might just be the right amount of mad for this business, I do feel like the Australians that I feel compelled to stand up and fight for need champions now as much as they ever have.”