Small business owners in the Riverina should be concerned as to why the Government’s Small Business Minister, Craig Emerson has refused to explain why small business concerns regarding Labor’s ETS continue to be ignored by the Rudd Government, and why the vast bulk of small businesses have been excluded from receiving compensation for the steep electricity and input cost increases under their scheme.

The Rudd Government’s Small Business Minister has not once addressed the punishing small business impacts and worrying implications of Labor’s ETS in Parliament. 

On every occasion, the Minister has failed to defend why the vast bulk of small businesses facing up to 24% higher electricity costs and input cost rises will receive no compensation under Labor’s huge $114 billion ETS ‘new tax and cash merry-go-round’.

The Coalition has challenged the Government as to why only ‘medium to large’ manufacturing and mining businesses consuming in excess of 300 megawatt hours of electricity per year might be eligible for limited and transitional price compensation.

This limited eligibility and need to consume twice the electricity of a typical small business leaves hundreds of thousands of small businesses and millions of employees nationally exposed to and uncompensated for significant increases in electricity prices and input costs accumulated at each step in the supply chain under Mr Rudd’s great big new tax on everything ETS.

Labor is not going to listen to the needs and concerns of the small business community in the design of their ‘great big new tax on everything’.