Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey addressed the National Press Club today on last week’s Federal Budget.
Transcript of Joe Hockey’s post-Budget Address to the National Press Club.
In a part of my north shore electorate our Prime Minister describes as “privileged,” I have watched the fate of a small convenience store unfold over the last thirty five years. Whilst the shop has changed ownership it has only ever been a small family business usually operated by recent migrants to Australia.
Some months ago I dropped by late at night to buy some milk and I had a chat to the owner, lets call him “Sam” for the sake of anonymity.
During our conversation his young son was by his side doing his school homework on the shop counter.
Sam lamented to me how business had collapsed since the milk price had dropped to just one dollar a litre. Passing trade had fallen and his understocked shelves reflected the drop in sales. I admitted that there was little I could do to prevent a price discounting war between supermarkets. I did not want to create false hope.
At about this same time Sam was being hit with much higher electricity bills.
In order to save some outgoings he turned off his fridges at night and placed blankets over his freezer. His electricity bill dropped from around $600 a month to $300.
Since then Sam‘s electricity bill has been creeping back up to more than $500. He is very anxious about what the bill will look like after July. There is little more that he can do to reduce his electricity bill.
In the meantime, his customers have not come back and they can still buy milk down the road for just $1 a litre.
Of course there are billions of dollars of carbon tax compensation for some power stations and companies like Blue Scope Steel. There is no compensation for Sam or over two million similar small businesses.
The limited income tax and pension compensation for many Australians will not be enough to blunt the direct and indirect impact of the carbon tax.
I doubt that Sam’s family income is large, they live at the back of the shop, not in a waterfront residence such as Kirribilli House.
They may qualify for some form of compensation but nothing will compensate their small business for the day to day dislocation and rising costs. Nothing will compensate their business for the carbon tax.
Julia Gillard calls these people “privileged”. Yeah right. [Read more...]
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11.15pm – Notwithstanding the usual annoying and incessant interruptions from his interlocutor, Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey has just offered up a remarkably woolly performance on Lateline.
