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

I have been holding many community information booths across Brisbane over the past few weeks, and universally I have been hearing the same story. Small and medium businesses within the electorate of Brisbane are not happy with this government's carbon tax. There will be resulting problems for businesses. I am told it will cause complete chaos, and that is because electricity providers are going to pass on the tax. The higher the electricity providers' costs the higher the price that business will have to pay for electricity. A small deli and cafe owner in Clayfield recently told me that his options are to pass on the cost to consumers or to absorb the cost himself. On top of the increasing costs and the downturn in his trade that is not possible, so that means that he will have to let staff go. Traders at the Brisbane Markets also told me that their options are to pass on the cost of produce to consumers or shed staff.

This will be the real impact on this carbon tax to businesses in my electorate. The one thing that we know is that, if electricity is hit, it is not 300, 400 or 500 companies that will be affected, it will be thousands of businesses in Brisbane. This is the worst possible time to hit Australia with a new economy-wide tax that will not achieve its purpose. All it will do is clean out wallets.

We have heard that in the United States the cap and trade scheme, which is their equivalent of a carbon tax, is dead. In Japan it is off the table. In Canada it is gone. In Korea it has been deferred. In Europe the scheme has raised revenue of $1 per person per year over the last five years. The Australian system will raise $400 per person. The cost is 400 times heavier per person than the European scheme.

This weekend I will continue to hold community corners and information booths in the suburbs of Ascot, Hamilton and Clayfield, and I suspect that the story will be the same, that people are not happy with this carbon tax. They are not happy with being misled just days before the election. All that this tax will do is have a devastating impact on many businesses, workers and their families in the electorate of Brisbane.