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

We are just a few days away from the introduction of the world's largest carbon tax. I concur with the statement released by the Australian Retailers Association that it is indeed a nerve-wracking time. This is a time when small businesses are already feeling very vulnerable at a difficult time of challenging trading conditions: their costs are going up; their customers are not keen to be paying more; they will be the ones facing consumers as the wash-through effects of the carbon tax, which will hit each and every stage of the supply chain and the service system, compound and are then presented to the consumer; they have no fat in their budgets and profit margins, if in fact they are profitable at this time, and the soaring cost of living is affecting consumer and business confidence. It could not be a worse time to introduce the world's largest carbon tax. That is something that small businesses feel quite vividly.

As I travel around this continent, small business people continually tell me how appalled they are by this government's failure to take account of their particular circumstances and the challenges they face in deciding to proceed with a carbon tax that they heard the Prime Minister say would not be introduced under a government she led. The harm that has caused has been followed by the injury being inflicted on small business people. They have been overlooked and disregarded, and their concerns have not been met by a receptive and interested government. Instead, the government has shown hostility and has tried to discredit small business people when they have spoken about their concerns. It has challenged small business people and their representative organisations when they bring forward legitimate concerns and case studies about how the carbon tax will adversely impact on those businesses, on their ability to remain viable and to continue to provide employment opportunities, hope, reward and opportunity within their communities.

The latest episode, in terms of harming small business, has seen the government use the ACCC, not in a way that is consistent with the law and with the responsibilities of the commission but as an instrument of intimidation and bullying, to try to frighten and create fear in small businesses who are talking truthfully and honestly about the carbon tax's impact on their business and on the prices of their goods and services.

It is not the ACCC's role to be the bodyguards of government spin; its role is to implement the law. That is why it was very important for the coalition to produce and circulate information brochures. These information brochures that we have sent to butchers, cafes, restaurants and bakeries state some very simple facts—facts that the government has released about what it believes will be the energy price increases arising from the carbon tax, price increases that have been widely challenged as wildly underestimating the impact on energy prices. Think of a business that operates heavy-energy-use equipment during the night and that has structured its enterprise to take advantage of cheaper tariffs during the night. The carbon tax does not discern between high-tariff periods and low-tariff periods. We have seen example after example of people who operate and rely heavily on off-peak tariffs overnight seeing electricity price increases of the order of 50 and 60 per cent at a time when they are operating during the night to remain competitive. We have sought to explain and help small businesses understand, in an honourable and accurate way, what the impact of the carbon tax will be. It will impact not only directly on the energy costs of businesses but, as it says here, on the cost of refrigeration and on the supply chain, where it will build at each and every stage. Imagine an ice cream retailer: the carbon tax will affect the dairy operations when the cows are being milked, the transport to the milk processor, the energy intense refrigeration of perishable goods at the ice creamery, the wholesaler and the small business, which gets to buy an input to its business that has had those impacts all the way through.

The government stands condemned for trying to imply that there is something unlawful about these brochures, when there is not. It is the coalition that has been informing small business about the need to be reliable and to be able to substantiate claims they make about the need to raise prices related to the impact of the carbon tax. There has been no modelling done by this government. The government should be condemned for that. The ACCC is relying on industry advice, which the government criticises at every turn. This was a necessary step by the coalition to put out some factual information, to be an ally with small businesses and consumers and to inform them about the real impact of the carbon tax. This should be supported, not attacked. (Time expired)