Small businesses around the country were warned yesterday by the opposition they could be facing carbon tax-related increases in their power bills of an alarming 25 per cent.
But the dire prediction appears to have been based on the rough estimates of a large industrial user, and according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has no relevance to the average corner store.
The Coalition climate change spokesman, Greg Hunt, yesterday cited Melbourne firm Hardchrome Engineering, which he said had been ”notified” its bill would be rising by $70,000 a year because of the tax.
Mr Hunt warned that other small businesses could expect similar rises of up to 25 per cent.
”It’s a reality around Australia that many small businesses will face bills of not just of 10 per cent but 15, 20 or 25 per cent. If the Prime Minister doesn’t believe these figures, she should visit these premises that have been affected,” Mr Hunt said.
But the Hardchrome Engineering chief executive, Andrew Dugan, told the Herald he did not know the exact effect of the carbon price on the $250,000 annual electricity bill for his firm, which specialises in energy-intensive electroplating.
When asked about it by a News Limited journalist he had arrived at the $70,000 figure by multiplying the $23 carbon price by the emissions from his electricity use on his electricity bill, although his company will not be paying the tax directly.
Mr Dugan said the journalist had then calculated that $70,000 represented an increase in his bill of almost 25 per cent.
Large industrial power users such as Mr Dugan - who buys his power on three-year contracts through energy broker Selectricity - often pay just 10¢ to 15¢ per kilowatt hour for power, half the rate of residential or normal small business customers.
Because they pay a much lower rate, when the carbon tax is passed through and calculated as a percentage increase, the impact can be closer to 20 per cent than the 10 per cent increase most households face.
But the ACCC chairman, Rod Sims, said he could not see any circumstances where an average small business could have a carbon-related price increase of ”anything like 25 per cent”.
”I just can’t see how that would be possible,” he said. ”Large industrial users might be in that situation, particularly if they connect straight to the transmission grid and have bypassed the increases in distribution costs, but regular small businesses or households will not face increases of that kind.”
Mr Sims has been directed by the federal government to crack down on ”misleading and deceptive” claims by businesses about the carbon tax and has 23 extra staff to police his efforts.
