Page 2678 - Week 09 - Thursday, 16 September 2021
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That is why I am so devastated for all of the businesses struggling and bleeding through lockdown across Canberra. My heart goes out to all of them because I understand. I know firsthand what it feels like to have that chest-crushing stress of not being able to cover your costs, of being forced to decide whether you keep pushing for one more month, or whether to just throw in the towel and walk away.
I must confess that, when our business failed, admitting defeat was a hard pill to swallow. We felt embarrassed; we felt we had let down our staff and our families. We had to reinvent ourselves and find a new dream, and that was very hard—so very hard.
I share this story today to highlight the stark difference between my experience, as traumatic as it was, and what we are witnessing across Canberra as lockdown and a lack of support from this government force businesses to the wall. I am on my feet today not to talk about my plight 13 years ago but to salute the courageous business owners in Canberra today—the hundreds of them, perhaps thousands, who are facing closure through no fault of their own.
They have been forced to draw on their personal finances and business savings, forced to borrow money from families, parents, siblings and in-laws. But this money can only last for so long. I have said it before: businesses save for a rainy day. But this is the longest rainy day they have had to face, and it is brutal.
I do not know anyone who can afford to live for nine weeks without an income to cover their personal expenses, let alone have wages to pay, commercial rent, utilities, insurance, bank fees and vehicle registrations; the list goes on. Yet that is what our businesses are expected to do.
It is a completely different world that few people outside business truly understand. To all of the business warriors across Canberra today—mum and dad businesses, the micro businesses and sole traders, the third or fourth generation businesses, the young entrepreneurs, the businesses operating from a garage or a spare bedroom, the employers who carry a huge extra slice of responsibility and burden—to all of you and those that I have missed, I want to send a heartfelt and most sincere message of encouragement.
No “rah-rah, we’re all in this together; we can get through it together,” because that is rubbish. We are not all in this together. Business has it tougher than most, and many are on their knees. Nobody but a business owner is responsible for the heavy weight of the financial responsibilities they carry. But please know that someone in this place, this comfortable chamber called the Legislative Assembly, so far removed from the everyday lives and struggles, does understand, has lived through it and will continue to work hard and fight for you the best way that I can.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
The Assembly adjourned at 6.25 pm until Wednesday, 6 October 2021 at 10 am.
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