Gillard carbon tax to hurt small business and no hint of compensation
10/03/11
The Gillard Labor Government’s carbon tax will cause significant cost increases and job losses for Australian small businesses.
A recent survey from the United Retail Federation (URF) has revealed anticipated cost increases of 18% across all categories and a 25% increase to fresh food and grocery prices because of additional refrigeration expense right through the supply chain for perishables.
Cost of living pressures on Australian families and tight household budgets make it impossible for small businesses to simply ‘pass on’ cost increases as Labor has previously urged.
Efforts by small businesses to absorb a significant proportion of the cost increases caused by Julia Gillard’s carbon tax is expected to cost jobs and reduce the working hours available to employees.
An earlier United Retail Federation poll revealed that 78 per cent of respondents have said they will be forced to cut back staff hours and jobs to cover Labor’s carbon tax.
On the back of the Prime Minister’s emphatic statement ‘there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead’ almost 80 per cent of small businesses took Labor at its word and have not factored carbon pricing into their business plans.
The carbon tax compounds at each stage of a production process and service system and small businesses do not have the luxury of vertical integrated supply chains and big business market power to push back on cost increases on vital business inputs.
As ACCI chief executive Peter Anderson recently said of Labor’s carbon tax plan;
If anything like the 2009 Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) proposal is repeated in 2011, the carve-outs combined with the failure to compensate SMEs for higher energy costs and their lack of market power in supply chains would make the gap between small and large business conditions even worse.
The Government’s ‘climate change framework’ announcement failed to make any mention of the harm Labor’s carbon tax will cause to small business viability and ability to employ and the Government has once again completely ignored small business in any public statement about compensation.