The National Party has hit out at the Government’s carbon tax, warning that 100,000 business using diesel or petrol will bear the brunt of the new tax.
Leader of the Nationals and Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Warren Truss, dismissed the assurance of the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, that only 500 of the nation’s largest polluters would pay.
Truss said Australia’s 47,000 trucking businesses, along with 60,000 other businesses, including construction, manufacturing, and the bus industry would pay considerable costs under the new tax regime.
“It’s a carbon tax to hit well over 100,000 businesses based on fuel costs alone – that’s a far cry from 500,” Truss said.
In a submission to the Government’s Joint Select Committee examining the carbon tax, the Australian Trucking Association warned that the planned changes to the fuel tax credit system would impose an effective carbon price on every one of Australia’s 47,000 trucking businesses.
The Association added that 85 per cent of these were small businesses with fewer than five employees. It further argued that small operations in the trucking industry were similar to other small businesses, which are permanently exempt from the carbon price.
The only difference was that that they operated trucks weighing more than 4.5 tonnes.
In its own submission, the Minerals Council of Australia said the carbon price on fuel would apply to 60,000 businesses from 1 July 2012, among them tens of thousands of small businesses, covering 22,500 in construction; 5,350 in manufacturing; 5,305 in retail and wholesale trades; thousands of tourism operators; 1,500 mining operators; 775 education and training sector bodies, and several hospitals and large healthcare providers.
With anticipated increases factored into the carbon prices and Road User Charge, the Bus Industry Confederation said it anticipated the fuel cost of bus operations to increase by more than nine cents per litre by 2016.
Truss slammed the carbon tax for what he said was “a rolling attack on the transport sector”, which would particularly impact regional areas.
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