Greg Hunt gets his own carbon tax repeal law wrong, lawyer says

Lenore Taylor, political editor

theguardian.com, Friday 11 July 2014

He said supermarkets and airlines face fines if they don't remove a carbon tax impost from their prices when the tax is repealed

Greg Hunt's statement was erroneous, says Norton Rose Fulbright partner Elisa de Wit. Photograph: Daniel Munoz/AAP

The environment minister, Greg Hunt, has incorrectly explained his own carbon tax repeal laws, a leading lawyer says.

Speaking on Adelaide radio on Friday, Hunt said supermarkets and airlines could be fined by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) if they did not remove a carbon tax impost from their prices when the tax is repealed.

“The law is if a company had added the price of the carbon tax then they have to take it off, or the ACCC will come after them with $1.1m fines and that includes supermarkets, airlines, that includes landfill operators, not to mention electricity and gas,” he said.

Norton Rose Fulbright partner Elisa de Wit said the statement was “erroneous”.

“Companies such as ‘supermarkets, airlines … [and] landfill operators’ are presently under absolutely no legal obligation to take off ‘the price of carbon’ if and when the existing legislation is repealed,” she said. “They merely need to ensure that they do not engage in misleading or deceptive conduct, or make any false or misleading statements about their prices.”

The ACCC has the power to take action against electricity or gas companies that refuse to pass on the carbon price, but against other companies only if they make false public claims about the impact of the repeal on their prices.

Woolworths has said that because very few suppliers increased their prices when the carbon tax was introduced, very few would reduce their prices when it was repealed.

Qantas has removed the “carbon surcharge” on domestic and regional air fares as the carbon tax repeal looms, but said that because of the competitive domestic market it had not been recovering the cost of the carbon tax, and ticket prices would not change.

"Given the level of competition and the unique pressures in the domestic aviation market, we haven't been able to recover the cost of the carbon tax through price increases as we originally intended," Qantas said this week in a statement.

Because of this, the removal of the surcharge would not lead to “any change to the prices that customers pay".

During their campaign against the carbon tax, Tony Abbott and Hunt regularly said the cost of food, supermarket goods and airline tickets had gone up because of the tax.

The ACCC issued a statement this week saying it was seeking “information from a number of entities that have made public statements about the impact of the carbon tax on their prices, including airlines”.

Hunt’s office has been contacted for comment.

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