Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

for highlighting the availability of these very useful information documents.

The government has not done any modelling on the impact on small business. It has not provided any advice about how small business and its consumers will feel the pain of the carbon tax. It has then gone around accusing the opposition of making false claims, when we are actually providing the only reliable, accurate and dependable information that is out there. We then had the Assistant Treasurer having a go at me and the Leader of the Opposition, saying that these documents were misleading. That only lasted about an hour. When he came into this place he was very smart not to repeat that claim, because he knows it is not right. These documents are accurate and reliable, and they communicate the reality of the carbon tax impact on small business.

When we come to false claims, where do you start? Can you get past, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead'? That is a whopper of a false claim, and it is lucky that the ACCC does not have a crack at prime ministerial statements. But it goes further than that. We have seen the Prime Minister assure, in her words, 'small business families and tradies' that there will be no impact on fuel, yet we know from the Australasian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association that that is not true either. They said that is simply not correct.

There might have been a few freebie permits given for refining, but that is it. It is all the way through the movement of that fuel—its storage, its production and its distribution to the petrol sellers around the place. With the cost of running a service station, ACAPMA itemise every step along the way post the refinery process, where the carbon tax is going to push up the cost of production and put upward pressure on fuel. That is another false and misleading claim by the Prime Minister.

Then there was another one. Remember when the Prime Minister was in Brisbane and she said, 'I am sure most businesses will do the right thing, but if anyone dares put up their prices by more than one per cent they will be price gouging and we will send the ACCC after them'? People stopped and thought, 'Gee, that's interesting. Maybe the government has done some modelling that they have locked away along with the modelling for the taxation review that no-one can get a look at. Maybe it's just tucked away in a secret file.' So we ask the question: where did this claim come from? Where is the evidence to back it up? Where is the data, the analysis, to support what amounted to a prime ministerial decree on price movements arising from the carbon tax? Do you know where it is? It is not anywhere. It is not in here, in the dispatch box; I had a look and I could not find it in there. I have asked the small business minister to produce some in consideration in detail. There has been none. We have asked time and time again: where is the detail to substantiate that claim? The answer? There is none. There is no detail to substantiate what is the most blatant verbal haranguing the Prime Minister could give the small business community—accusing them with no analysis of what the cap would be on price movements.

What is worse, she did not even accurately reflect the law. In Australia we have no law that mandates a cap on price movements and no requirement for people to disclose exactly why they have arrived at the price they have. If you do not like the price, you can go somewhere else. If you have decided that you want to structure your business from certain price points, you can do that. That is why we live in this market economy. Does the Prime Minister get that? No. The centralised view is that everything comes out of Canberra. She must think you have to approve it or something, but that is not the case.

The law actually says that small businesses, when they are making representations, cannot be false and misleading. What the Prime Minister did was falsely and in a misleading way incorrectly characterise the law to frighten and intimidate small business so that she can run around, saying, 'See, there is no impact. We were right with our wildly conservatively understated estimate of the price impact of the carbon tax. Look at that.' What is the consequence of that? What is the effect for small business in an already difficult trading environment, with wafer-thin margins, no sloppy profits to be found, costs going up everywhere and their own energy costs, all of which we have seen in government reports in which they have been understated over and over again?

Rent is going up, gas is up and electricity is up. They have never run a business and, since I have been the shadow minister, we have our fourth small business minister that we are going to have educate about what a small business is. I am happy to keep working at that but please help me. It is an enormous task because there is no early evidence that I have been successful in letting the minister know what the impact is on small business. Have a look at some of these documents. We are doing the government's work for them, communicating the very essence of the scheme, as they describe it, and then they accuse the coalition of doing the wrong thing. You should be doing that, Minister. That is what the shadow small business minister and the opposition leader would not have to do if the government were fair dinkum and had half an interest in the plight of small business in this economy.

It goes further. The Assistant Treasurer, after not repeating his unsubstantiated claim in the media today about the nature of these documents, has scurried off, but he has made a contribution elsewhere. I raised the impact of the carbon tax and what it would mean for Westfield Penrith. There is now a carbon tax escalation clause in the lease of their tenants, so you have tenants faced with having carbon tax escalation factors affecting their leases, their direct energy costs, and we could have a long conversation—and I hope we get the chance—about the impact of energy costs in off-peak rates. I have had small businesses say to me, 'We have had to structure our business because we are a heavy energy user and we do the bulk of our heavy energy use during the night because the tariff is lower.' We have heard this right around the country, and they will get an enormous increase in their costs.

When we talked about Penrith, and the member for—wherever the election is.

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