MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE – THE IMPACT OF THE CARBON TAX ON SMALL BUSINESS
October 12, 2011
Mr CHESTER (Gippsland) (16:00): I have great pleasure in joining in this discussion on the matter of great public importance—that is, the impact of the carbon tax on small business. I thought I would restate what the matter of public importance was just for the interest of those opposite, because the previous speaker hardly mentioned small business in his address. Really, I am not surprised at all by his reluctance to mention it, because we have the Prime Minister, who the gentleman opposite supports, and just after the Prime Minister’s treacherous disposal of the member for Griffith she fronted the Australian public and said, ‘There will be some days that I delight you and some days that I may disappoint you.’
I actually have a tremendous view of the backbench from where I sit and I do not see a lot of smiling faces. I have to report that I do not see a lot of love for the Prime Minister. In fact, all I see every day is disappointment. There are some days—and this might alarm the frontbench—when the noddies forget how to nod. They sit there very stony faced. They get out of sync. They think, ‘Should I have the concerned look now or should I have the knowing smile or will I use the discerning raise of the eyebrow or should I just give the enthusiastic nod?’
For the Prime Minister, today was clearly a day of absolute delight. Earlier today we had members opposite clapping, cheering and backslapping each other as the carbon tax legislation was passed, but I can assure the House that no-one in small business throughout Australia was joining in the orgy of self-congratulation we saw among those opposite today. The excitement was everywhere. I almost expected the member for Charlton to lead a conga line around the House, with the Independents and the Greens hanging off the end, a bit like dags at the end of a sheep.
Spare a thought for the poor member for Griffith. He was at the very back of the chamber and he did not know what to do. Should he head for the nearest exit or should he come down and join in the festivities? To his credit, the member for Griffith came down, summoned up his courage and puckered up for a prime ministerial kiss.
Mr Billson: It was a nanna kiss.
Mr CHESTER: You say it was a nanna kiss, but I do not want to sound too judgmental. It was not much of a kiss. It looked a bit contrived. It looked like the member for Griffith was acting. I am not sure. It looked like he was playing the dutiful senior minister role or something else was going on in his mind. It was as if he had something else to do. It made me think about some of the great Hollywood romances—the great kissing moments. I researched a website which I think the member for Griffith would be happy to hear about. It is titled The Best and Most Memorable Film Kisses of All Time in Cinematic History. The question would be: how—
Dr Emerson: Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I was admonished for not mentioning small business. I suggest that, given the subject of the MPI is small business, maybe just in passing the member might—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Hon. Peter Slipper): The minister will resume his seat. He was not admonished by the chair. The member for Gippsland is aware, as we all are, that this is a wide-ranging debate, but he will, to some extent, focus on the topic of the matter of public importance.
Mr CHESTER: I do not expect the minister to kiss and tell.
Dr Emerson: I won’t be kissing you!
Mr CHESTER: That is at last a point that the minister and I can agree on. How would we describe the member for Griffith coming down to congratulate his colleagues? He was shaking hands in the spirit of the occasion, but suddenly the Prime Minister was cast before him and he did not know whether to run and hide or give the howdy-salute he tried with presidents around the world. For a would-be comeback Prime Minister in these situations it is hard to know which act will get his run on the evening news. So he puckered up and planted a peck on the prime ministerial cheek—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member for Gippsland will resume his seat. There are two people seeking to take a point of order, but I will call the Minister for Trade.
Dr Emerson: Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I can hardly wait for the member to do the hokey-pokey and the Time Warp dance. Let’s get slightly relevant.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I would ask the member for Gippsland to return to the substance of the MPI.
Mr CHESTER: This kiss is memorable. It is memorable because it is the kiss of death to many small businesses throughout Australia.
Dr Emerson: Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I just point out that you gave an instruction to the member which he completely ignored.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am aware of that. The member for Gippsland will return to the subject of this matter of public importance debate. It does not seem to be much about kissing.
Mr CHESTER: I will get back to it, Mr Deputy Speaker. The point I made is that that kiss is memorable because it is going to be the kiss of death to small businesses throughout regional Australia. We now know that the member for Griffith will be no different to the member for Lalor when he is reinstalled in the Lodge. When he returns as Prime Minister, the member for Griffith will treat small business in exactly the same manner.
It is often said that in politics timing is everything, but it is never the right time for a bad tax. Now is the time when we have volatile world markets and there is great economic uncertainty. This is not the time for a new tax and those opposite know it. They know it because they are getting that feedback from their electorates on a daily basis. They just have not had the courage to come into this place and stand up for their communities. It is certainly not the right time to introduce a tax that our international competitors will not be paying, when the Australian small business sector is doing it hard.
If there is a first rule in Australian politics, surely it should be to do no harm. When it comes to the small-business sector right now, confidence is down and certainly the retail sector in regional communities is down—and I presume it is the same in metropolitan areas, but I tend to spend more time in regional communities—and confidence is taking a battering. And the worst thing a government could be doing right now is introducing a new tax which will diminish community confidence further and force people to keep their hands in their pockets and not spend, particularly when their international competitors will not face the same impost.
That is the crucial point. We are making Australian businesses less competitive compared to their international counterparts. This tax will erode small business confidence. It will encourage businesses which have the option to relocate offshore to do just that, to take jobs offshore, and it will also make it more difficult for small businesses right across our nation.
One area of small business which has often been missed in this debate is the agricultural sector. The government has continued to make claims that the agricultural sector is out of the carbon tax. The feedback from constituents of mine involved in the dairy sector dispute that. The President of the United Dairy Farmers Victoria, Chris Griffin, put out a statement earlier this year highlighting their concerns that the introduction of a carbon price of just $20 would cost the dairy industry over $45 million per annum. This would work out to a $5,000 charge for every Australian dairy farmer per year. Mr Griffin stated:
These additional costs will disproportionately affect the ability of Victorian dairy producers to compete in international markets. Our competitors will not have to deal with the burden of a price on carbon, making it impossible to pass on the added cost of the tax to consumers.
Dairy farmers hit with a $5,000 increase in their cost of production will survive. But what it will mean is they will have to reduce their expenditure in their local communities. The small country towns that rely on a profitable dairy sector will suffer as a direct result of that, and the people who will suffer most are the small businesses, like the local sports shop. Instead of mum and dad going in and buying the brand product from the local sport shop, they will go to a large warehouse or department store and buy the cheaper variety. That is what happens in small country towns when you undermine the profitability of the dairy sector—the small business community suffers as a result.
That highlights the greatest Labor Party myth about this carbon tax—that the so-called 500 biggest polluters are the only ones who will pay the carbon tax. Regional Australians are smarter than that, and small business owners in particular understand that that is a myth. They realise that they are at the absolute pointy end of this debate. They know that this tax will cascade through the Australian economy like a toxic waterfall. This tax will cascade through the economy and add costs to everyday Australian families. It will hurt small businesses, it will make Australian exporters less competitive and it will cost jobs.
If it was so good, why didn’t the Prime Minister go the Australian people before the election and say, ‘I will introduce a carbon tax’? If it was so good, why wasn’t she honest with the Australian people in the first place? This really comes down to a matter of trust. The Australian people simply do not trust a government when it has a Prime Minister who cannot even arrange for the installation of home insulation batts without tragically killing four young men. This is a complex reform of the Australian economy and the Australian people simply do not trust this government to be able to deliver it.
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