18 July 2014
ABC News
The Pastoralists and Graziers Association (PGA) of WA says the abolition of the carbon tax will improve the competitiveness of Australian producers in the international market.
The lobby group says the tax placed unnecessary imposts on primary producers and negatively impacted farmers’ bottom line.
PGA president Tony Seabrook says repealing the tax will have a significant impact on the profitability of agriculture.
“There’s a massive competitive world out there,” he said.
“We’re competing against Indians, Argentinians and Ukrainians and their cost base is … much lower than ours and anything that we do to reduce our cost of production inevitably results in a better bottom line for people who are in our industry.”
He says the carbon repeal benefits may not be felt for some time but will make a difference.
“You’re not going to see an immediate jump in the cash balance of your bank account or anything like that but anything that decreases our costs of production is a significant part of us remaining profitable,” he said.
Regional Western Australians
Liberal Durack MP Melissa Price says the savings made from axing the carbon tax will benefit regional Western Australians in particular.
“In terms of transportation costs, if they’ve added that on to the cost of a product, yes, you would see that that will be coming off,” she said.
“I mean people will be obliged to take off these costs.
“With the modelling that’s been done … on average it’s about $550 in savings for every Australian family but it may well be more for Durack families.
“They [residents] are often faced with large power and gas bills because of the requirement to keep cool or to keep hot.
“There will be a number of local businesses which also won’t be paying the carbon tax so they will also benefit broadly.
“Of course, because the business isn’t going to be charged a carbon tax, they won’t be passing that cost on to the consumer.”
Courtesy of ABC News