Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. The member would be aware that I have taken a large number of questions like this about the impact of carbon pricing on small business, and when the opposition has chosen to table the documents and we have analysed those documents, and, on occasion, spoken to the small businesses in question, what we have found is that the facts are very, very different from what the opposition comes in here and says as part of its reckless fear campaign. We find that they are two very different things, because they have always been two very different things—the truth versus the opposition's reckless fear campaign. So if the member at any point chooses to table the documents, we will look at them. But I would make the following point to the member, as I have made in this House before: small businesses are not directly paying the carbon price; that is paid by Australia's biggest polluters. Yes, there are costs that do flow through to small businesses. We have said that that would occur, and one of the reasons that we assisted households through tax cuts, through increased family payments, through increased pensions, is that we recognise that a number of businesses would pass those costs through.

But let us be clear about the dimension: 0.7 per cent, less than one per cent, of CPI, of cost of living. Let us be clear about the dimension for families: an average of $10.10 assistance a week, which is more than the impact that families would expect to see.

On the question of small businesses, in terms of some facts that the member might want to be aware of, the Big Switch Projects report has been released, and this actually went to the costs of 66 businesses. It looked at their bills and tried to assess what has happened with carbon pricing. The Big Switch, of course, is a project being led to try and get people a cheaper electricity deal, and not because of the impact of carbon pricing but because of the impacts we have seen around the country of 50, 60, 70 per cent increases—the increases that the opposition from time to time denies exist, the 60, 70 per cent increases that we have seen in parts of the country. What this project found from those 66 businesses was that the average rise was 11 per cent, the equivalent of 2c per kilowatt hour.

So I would say to the member once again: do not be misled by the Leader of the Opposition into following his political tactics of reckless negativity. Instead, try and deal with those people in your electorate on the basis of the facts and what is actually happening. If the member wants to table the document then we will look at it and ascertain the facts.

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