100,000 Australian Businesses will be affected by the carbon tax

In a press release this week, Warren Truss, Leader of the National Party wrote:

“Over 100,000 Australian businesses that use diesel or petrol will feel the brunt of the carbon tax.

Putting paid to Julia Gillard’s claim that only 500 big polluters will pay, submissions to the government’s Joint Select Committee examining the carbon tax have revealed that 47,000 trucking businesses, 60,000 off-road businesses that rely on fuel and the bus industry will all suffer.

That’s a far cry from 500.

Under the carbon tax, the fuel tax credits scheme for on-road heavy vehicles will be cut by almost 7 cents per litre from 1 July 2014.

The Australian Trucking Association was damning:

“The Australian Government has stated that carbon pricing will only affect around 500 polluters. But the planned changes to the fuel tax credits system will impose an effective carbon price on every one of Australia’s 47,000 trucking businesses. 85 per cent of these businesses are small businesses with fewer than five employees. They are no different to the other small businesses that are permanently exempt from the carbon price, except they happen to operate trucks weighing more than 4.5 tonnes.”

The Minerals Council of Australia has listed more than 60,000 off-road businesses affected from 1 July 2012 – including tens of thousands of small businesses, 22,500 construction companies; 5,350 manufacturers; 5,305 retail and wholesale traders; thousands of tourism, accommodation and food service operators; 1,500 mining operations; several hospitals and large healthcare providers; and 775 education and training bodies.

The Bus Industry Confederation added:

“We anticipate the fuel cost of bus operations will increase by more than 9 cents per litre by 2016. Professor Stanley of the University of Sydney anticipates an increase of more than $40 million per year in operating costs as a result of the imposition of the carbon price on buses.

“When factored into a five-year rolling plan for State Governments this is an added increase in operating costs of bus public transport of more than $200 million, which will need to be recouped from users or made budget neutral through reduced spending on new and more vehicles in the fleet and worse still a reduction to existing services and no new services.”

The carbon tax is a rolling attack on the transport sector.   Businesses – big and small – will pay, which means consumers will pay and jobs will tumble.

With the bulk of goods transported around this country coming via road freight, families will inevitably feel the squeeze as those higher running costs hit the tills at checkouts.

Bus fares will also rise at the same time as some services could disappear altogether.  This will see passengers replaced by more private vehicles on the road, which is counter-intuitive to the desire to curb emissions.

These reverberations will be most severe in regional areas, where families, businesses and entire communities will carry a disproportionately higher burden.

Most of the lost jobs will be in regional Australia, but it’s clear that Labor, the Greens and Independents are careering out-of-control and just don’t care.

We need an election to stop the rot.”