A major packaging company operating in Australia and New Zealand has told customers it will pay the full $23-a-tonne carbon price, even though it is not listed by the government as being directly liable.
Colorpak, which has five plants and employs about 770 workers in Melbourne, Sydney and Auckland, is not on the government’s “liable entities” list of the largest carbon emitters.
But the ASX-listed company says on its website that under the carbon pricing scheme “Colorpak will pay per tonne of carbon that is released into the atmosphere, directly and indirectly”.
“The cost that applies from 1 July 2012 starts at $23 per tonne of emissions and will increase gradually until 2015,” Colorpak says.
The company’s website says that based on its electricity bills, and the $23/tonne price, the company’s carbon tax liability was expected to be $407,445.
It also notes that there could be further “indirect costs” from suppliers other than electricity companies, but that these would be “communicated and passed through on October 1, 2012”.
Colorpak declined to comment when contacted by AAP on Wednesday, with a company representative saying any comment would have to wait until next week.
The Printing Industries Association of Australia (PIAA) warned in its latest newsletter to members that they needed to be careful when estimating their extra costs and passing them on to customers.
The association’s national manager for policy and government affairs, Hagop Tchamkertenian, wrote in the newsletter that the wording of “carbon tax messaging” was important.
Mr Tchamkertenian said Colorpak was “setting a good example by being up front and proactive in its customer message about the incoming tax”.
But he added: “The direct bit is not correct, because there are about 300 companies, mostly energy companies, that are paying the carbon tax directly, whereas for businesses like Colorpak, it is indirect only.”
The PIAA has warned its members that carbon tax pricing claims must be substantiated.
It advised in the newsletter that “any business owner who is concerned that the carbon tax will have a negative impact on their commercial viability should consider passing the costs on to their clients”.
“We say that if you have the capacity to pass on the expense, it’s foolish to absorb the costs,” Mr Tchamkertenian writes in the newsletter.
Comment was being sought from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and Climate Change Minister Greg Combet.
