Big vision for Senator Small

In his maiden speech to Parliament, Senator Ben Small outlined his policy vision for Western Australia.

More than 10 years ago, I was on shift as a volunteer ambulance officer in a suburb of Bunbury when my partner and I were dispatched to transfer a palliative cancer patient from home to the hospital. It wasn't tasked as a medical emergency, but little did I know that one of the more profound experiences of my life was about to unfold.

Arriving at the house, we discovered that the patient was from a large Italian migrant family. We'll call him Giuseppe. He was in a bedroom by himself. After lumbering down a corridor with heavy bags of medical equipment, I was shocked to enter the darkened room and discover a mere shadow of a man lying on the bed. It always pays to stay quite chipper as an ambo, no matter how confronting the scene, so I breezily introduced myself and informed Giuseppe that we were going to whiz him across the bed onto our stretcher and pop him up to the hospital, at which point this emaciated figure in front of me simply said, 'No, you won't.' Trying to hide my surprise, I inquired as to how Giuseppe fancied getting to the hospital if it wasn't with our help. 'Son,' he said, 'I came to this country before you were born. I built this house myself and spent 25 years raising my family here, so I will walk out of here one more time.' All of the relatives in earshot burst into tears, my partner started misting up and I have to confess that I struggled not to start the waterworks myself as this incredibly frail figure slowly hauled himself out of bed and dragged himself down the corridor using only the wall for support over what seemed an agonising eternity. Giuseppe collapsed on the front porch, having walked out of his house for the last time.

I relay this story to the Senate for a simple reason, and that is that this story in aggregate has made our nation what it is. We're here today standing 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. We're all shaped by our experiences, and each of us has a story. We bring only our perspectives and values to this place, all with a desire to do right by the Australian people we represent. I come to this chamber acutely aware that behind the simple slogans of modern politics is the lived experience of many, including many migrants who collectively have made us the most successful multiracial migrant nation on earth.

I am, of course, standing here tonight in the place of a migrant, the incomparable Mathias Cormann. Mathias came to the Senate remarking:

… this is a country where, if you put your shoulder to the wheel, work hard, embrace the people and values and become an integral part of the community—in short, if you have a go—there is no limit to what you can achieve …

Matthias, in taking the baton, I hope to make these big shoes you've left go a long way yet.

It isn't possible to rise in the Senate tonight without mention of the incredible people who have shared the journey of my life so far, each of them contributing in part to making me the person that I am. It would be an impossible task to do these amazing humans justice by simply listing them out, and indeed we'd be here all night. Suffice it to say, then: you all know who you are, and I hope that you know how deeply I value you.

The Australia that I see is an ever stronger, prouder and more prosperous nation, and I will strive for that through an unwavering commitment to allowing ordinary Australians to be rewarded for their efforts, face lower taxes and experience the benefits of free trade, a healthy federation and the personal freedoms and responsibilities that we hold dear. In realising such a vision, I hold one thing to be self-evident: 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 as we might have wanted it.

To illustrate this necessity, consider a tale of two towns in Western Australia's Goldfields: the towns of Leinster and Leonora. Some four hours drive north of Kalgoorlie is the town of Leinster, where I spent time growing up as a child. It has a permanent population of approximately 700 people, who call an ambulance 35 times a year, mainly for medical emergencies. Leonora is just over an hour's drive from Leinster and also has a population of 700, but with a high proportion of Aboriginal Australians. They call an ambulance more than 300 times a year, with two-thirds of trauma calls relating to assault and domestic violence. This tale of two towns is all the more tragic because pushing tokenistic policies does nothing to alter the lived experience in disadvantaged communities.

This is the gap to close: the soft bigotry of low expectations writ large in the human misery that unfolds every day in our nation. 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 the silence about affording all Australians greater opportunity tomorrow. Reconciliation must afford opportunity but not special privilege. It must afford equality but not preference. This objectivity is confronting and yet essential if we are to make progress as a nation, affording reward for effort and a genuine safety net for those who, through no fault of their own, find themselves on hard times.

One of the greatest opportunities for my home state and, indeed, our nation lies in challenging longstanding norms around unemployment and the participation rate. These aren't just statistics, no matter how good the trend over time, because in reality the numbers represent an aggregated deprivation of self-worth, happiness and health. It is something that I commit to pursuing with vigour, as every job is life changing for the incumbent. Matters of employment are of great personal interest to me, not only as a compassionate person who believes in the dignity of meaningful work but also as a small business owner who has direct experience of hiring hardworking Australians and seeing firsthand the social and economic benefits that work can provide. The false caricature of an aristocratic employer rapaciously exploiting the downtrodden, the vulnerable and the weak in a relentless pursuit of ill-gotten gains is, frankly, centuries out of date. Such a view denies a fundamental premise of modern Australia in that most Aussies are fair-minded and hardworking, whether they be employees or employers.

Like millions of other Australians I had a dream of building my own small business, and it has grown to employ more than 30 people, including a number who were registered with a disability services agency. So I know what it is when we speak of the best form of welfare being a job. I'm particularly proud that each of the individuals who joined us wanted a go, got a go and stayed the course. One of my former employees has even gone on to start his own small business. What great Australian stories these are!

Indeed, almost one in two employees in Australia work in a small business of less than 20, meaning that most employers are tradies, restaurateurs, retailers or farmers working cheek by jowl, day after day—starting early and staying late, sacrificing and investing. These are the employment relationships that have built modern Australia. Employers in the modern economy have their interests best served by engaged, agile, freethinking and committed employees. Those same employees, in turn, benefit from the superior business performance of an organisation that has the flexibility to change, adapt, trade and prosper. The idea that we need more government red tape between an employer and employee too often stops employers hiring at all. Simplicity, certainty and flexibility are the watchwords of a reformed industrial and employment relations framework that creates opportunity for all Australians.

Every dollar that 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 that have gone by different names over time—'forgotten people', 'Howard's battlers', 'quiet Australians' or even 'Bob and Nancy Stringbag'. Whenever we speak of subsidy, commission, plan or initiative in this place we must have the courage to look them in the eye and explain that we are taking more of their money that they've earned for themselves and their families. These hardworking Australians don't live on Twitter, don't always read the paper, almost certainly aren't members of a political party and would never march through the streets of a city with superglue or snorkels, but they do value honesty in political leadership and will quietly nod their heads in the lounge room when a politician actually talks some sense. From this day forth, I will strive to be that sort of representative for the people of Western Australia.

In this new age of social media, cancel culture, woke revolution and whatever else is trending this minute, nobody seems inclined to remind Australians that, as our forebears learned, we simply cannot turn to government to solve all of our problems. Government shouldn't compete with an efficient and wealth creating private sector, because it isn't fair that a business should have to compete against a government entity that faces no pressure to be profitable and no risk of bankruptcy whilst backed by your tax dollar. Government must enable private enterprise, not shackle it, for it is business, small and large, that pays wages and generates wealth in this country. Fundamentally, that's why it's imperative that the government creates the right conditions for businesses to grow, employ and prosper, while we must enhance personal responsibility, reward for effort and the incentive to strive in the Australian economy. Through having travelled extensively and worked in and with many countries around the world, I've seen the full political spectrum of public economic control and its impacts on the lived experience under those regimes. This has given me a deep appreciation of why the Australian economy is as successful as it is.

My professional career was devoted to the energy industry, and from that I am very cognisant of the fact that energy affects all aspects of life. Households know too well the apprehension of opening a power bill after a hot summer, but less widely understood is the impact of energy prices on businesses — businesses that exist today and businesses that can exist tomorrow. Australia is blessed both with abundant reserves of cheap, efficient, low-emissions energy from conventional sources and the opportunity to diversify our economy to export new energies to the world. The economic imperative for cheap reliable energy to households and industry is timeless, but the way in which we meet that imperative is a live discussion. Governments of all stripes face the temptation to pick winners in this high-stakes game, but we must be strident in avoiding the distortion of direct interference in energy markets. In setting policy frameworks that allow supply competition, consumer choice and employment flexibility, I see private capital efficiently solving the continuing needs for energy at home and creating whole new industries to export to the world. In learning from the way my home state has fostered both the resources and energy sectors, and combining it with appropriate policy leadership focused on Australia's national interest, government can create the foundation from which our success as a nation will reach new heights with unprecedented value creation and employment.

The answer to these problems is not more government but less. The answer is not more bureaucracy but less. The answer is not more taxation but less. We will be successful in delivering good government only if we appeal to the pride of Australians, not their wallets. We should promise only the dignity of hard work, not the spoils of hard work done by others. Every time the bells ring in this place there lies the possibility that opportunity and incentive can be extinguished by weight of regulation, restriction or red and green tape, and we are the only guardians against that. Having bold policy ambition is easy, but delivering meaningful change is a different matter altogether.

Elected representatives often speak of the honour and privilege that comes with doing the people's work. I believe that, just as any freedom is accompanied with responsibility in equal measure, the privilege of representation comes with a duty to deliver outcomes. I will strive never to mistake activity for progress and never to conflate well-intentioned words in here with the grim reality after dark in Leonora. In standing ready to push my boat away from the shore and set sail into the uncharted waters of my parliamentary journey, I am very mindful of the oft quoted reflection: 'In my dying embers I shall forever regret, when I am right nobody remembers, and when I'm wrong nobody forgets.'

To represent Western Australia in this place is a deep honour. I hope always to do so in a way that embodies those characteristics for which Western Australians are best known: tenacity, practicality, ingenuity and, dare I say it, a slight irreverence. This chamber is a deliberative body, one charged with important work. Yet even in this era I think there is still room for a bit of the humour that has long characterised the Australian temperament and is still the quality for which our best remembered parliamentarians on all sides are most often recalled. So, like Giuseppe, when I walk out of this place for the last time I want to be standing tall with a deep sense of pride and a satisfaction that, in some way, our nation is all the better for my contribution here. I thank the Senate.

Ben Small is Senator for Western Australia. This is a transcript of his maiden speech delivered on 03 February 2021.