Teresa Gambaro (Brisbane, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship and Settlement) Share this | Hansard source

Today is a very, very sad day for Australia, Australian business, thousands of households and the Australian economy. This is the day when legislation for a carbon tax was passed, and it will live on in infamy for Australian households and the economy. Australians took this Prime Minister at her word five days before the last election when she said: 'There will be no carbon tax under a government that I lead.' And today the House sees the consequence of that fundamental breach of trust. Not only did ordinary mums and dads go out and vote believing her but also hundreds of thousands of small businesses all over Australia took her at her word.

Every day businesses make decisions about the future of their companies and, in order for them to do that effectively, they require consistent and effective public policy from the government of the day. With a Labor government that has a track record of announcing new taxes without proper consideration, they are not receiving this consistency. Almost 80 per cent of small businesses took Labor at its word and did not factor a carbon tax into either their business plans or their business operations. These businesses are already suffering from a global financial crisis, and they have also been burdened by the effects of a huge slump in consumer spending. I am told whenever I go around my electorate that there is a huge lack of consumer confidence out there which is affecting small business and plaguing the Australian economy.

But what has this government done while businesses are hurting? It has introduced a carbon tax. Since Labor was elected in 2007, Australia has lost 300,000 jobs in the small business sector and small business profitability is at an 18-year low. This legislation will only inflict further pain and suffering on many hundreds and thousands of households and the many small businesses in this country.

I have to mention the member for Lindsay's contribution. He said I knew nothing about small business, but I need to correct him on that. I have been involved in small business for 40 years—in very small companies from grocery stores to supermarkets to retail enterprises—so he does not know what he is talking about. What he and the government are doing at the moment is hurting every business in Australia. Until about a year ago I managed a small family retail business. In that one year I saw our electricity prices almost double from $4,800 to $8,000. Every business in Australia will be looking at this carbon tax and those operating costs and wondering how they are going to survive.

Australians constantly hear from the Prime Minister that only the polluters—not individuals or small business—will pay for this tax, and in the same breath the Prime Minister mentions that some Australians will be compensated for the costs that they incur as a result of the tax. We know that the Prime Minister was being untruthful and she said that small businesses will not pay, and we have found out today that small businesses are not going to receive one dollar of compensation. That is extremely frightening.

The member for Lindsay said earlier that the tax is only going to impact on grocery prices by 0.7 per cent. That is not true; the tax will have a multiplier effect. Groceries will go up substantially more. I have just given you the example of a small business facing an electricity hike in the normal circumstances, but the effect of a carbon tax on electricity prices will be phenomenal.

Recently, a survey by the Institute of Public Accountants said that 70 per cent of accountants—these are the people who manage and advise small business—believed that small businesses would be negatively affected by the carbon tax. Of these accountants, 63 per cent also believed that small businesses would not be adequately compensated. They are not being compensated. In contrast to large firms, small businesses have limited market power to control the prices of their inputs. Small businesses will have higher energy costs and longer supply chains, but, in contrast to large firms, small businesses will not be able to pass on the costs to their customers and will instead have to absorb them. There is only one way to do that: cutting jobs, which is a further threat to the economy. Worry about the situation comes through in my visits to the many businesses in my electorate. This is part of my job, and I always enjoy visiting small businesses. As a former small business owner-operator, I like talking to small and medium sized business operators about their operations. Constantly they are saying to me, 'Why is this Prime Minister pushing this legislation now when she said to us most clearly that there would be no carbon tax under a government she led?'

Yesterday I received an email from Morgan's Seafood, which is not in my current electorate of Brisbane but in my former electorate of Petrie. During the 2010 election campaign the member for Petrie promised her electorate wholeheartedly that there would be no carbon tax under a Gillard government—and the electorate believed her, as many others did. Many of those voters should now be given the opportunity to be heard. They really do deserve a say in whether they support this tax. Seventy-two Labor MPs broke their promise to the electorate today. Morgan's wrote to me in that email:

I am writing to you to express my very deep concern for the future of my business and the jobs of the 140 members of my staff that I employ. The basis of my concerns is the soon to be introduced 'Carbon Tax' and its repercussions. I have recently been informed by my electricity broker of the projected 17% increase to my 'post tax' electricity bill (the calculation is based on the government provided formula). This increase on its own would threaten the profitability of my business, in what is an already very difficult economic retail environment. Combined with significant other recent cost increases, the 'Carbon Tax' would seriously endanger the continued operation of my company. In the current economic environment how can the imposition of these large scale cost increases be justified?

Recently I toured Essilor, a local optical lens manufacturer which has over 500 employees in Australia, 51 of whom are in Brisbane. Essilor have already cut employment as a result of the general business environment, and they have told me that they cannot see how they can continue to manufacture in Australia with a carbon tax in force. I visited the Brisbane markets, and many of the wholesalers there said that they would have to reduce staff as they would be unable to pass on the cost of the carbon tax. I receive many emails from small professional services businesses in Latrobe Terrace in Paddington, and they are all concerned about the impact of the tax on their electricity bills.

It is important to remind the House that, while a lot of attention is being paid at the moment to manufacturing and industry, there are also a lot of small offices and a lot of office employees—people such as real estate agents and health professionals—and that this tax will impact on them by increasing their operating costs. Importantly, this government has not considered the unseen consequences of this tax: many small businesses that would have been started will now not be started because of this tax. As a former small business owner-operator, I know firsthand that it is already very hard to work through the complexity of the regulatory and legal framework that Australian small business has to contend with. These people are putting their money on the line. They have to work very long and hard hours just to break even. This carbon tax has a huge implication for the future entrepreneurs of this country, making it even harder for new ideas to enter the small business world.

When the GST was introduced I was a member of the Howard government. We spent the entire election campaign selling the virtues of the GST. We were honest about it; we went to the people before the election. It was tough and I nearly lost my seat. But I went to the electorate with all the members on this side of the House who were members at the time ensuring that small business knew what the future direction was of our country. We held forums, we discussed this quite openly and we funded a number of industry groups.

This tax is a small-business destroying tax. I call on the Prime Minister to give the members opposite the chance to sell the carbon tax to their electorates. This tax should have been held off until an election. I do not support the carbon tax, as it will be a soul-destroying tax for the hundreds of thousands of small businesses across Australia. It will impede their operations, it will do nothing for their profitability, it will reduce their ability to employ people and we will see massive job losses. (Time expired)

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