HOST:
David Bradbury joining us, David good afternoon to you.
BRADBURY:
Good afternoon, good to be with you.
HOST:
With the quality of journalism you'd be delighted again, wouldn't you?
BRADBURY:
Oh look, you're not going to draw me on a comment there
HOST:
Come on!
HOST:
You can't draw him into because the boss of the cemetery's actually said he can never absolutely say it wasn't said.
HOST:
It's just another confection. David, what would you say to any cemetery that peddles this line? What would you be saying to that cemetery?
BRADBURY:
Well we've been very clear about this, businesses need to be very careful about the sorts of claims that they're making to their customers. If they are increasing their prices and are seeking to attribute those price rises to the carbon price then they need to be able to justify and back up the claims that they are making. Now, in this particular case, what we can say is that the funeral companies themselves are not directly liable for the carbon price, so that's the first point to make. To the extent that they're impacted by the flow on of any other price rises, well we've made the point that the Treasury modelling would anticipate that overall prices will increase by less than one per cent. So when you take those factors into account, when I first heard of this story I was scratching my head, wondering how an increase of that scale could be attributed to the carbon price. At least what we've seen now from the company is that they've come forward – I think they're actually not sure who it was in their organisation that may have been involved in making that claim. I think that's also a timely reminder for businesses that you do have obligations and you've got to make sure that to the extent that these matters are within your control, that you're encouraging your staff to be educated about what they can or can't say on these matters.
HOST:
Absolutely. David, I'm just wondering, the story came out of the Murdoch stable down in Melbourne, the Herald Sun. Was your office approached for comment before the story went to press?
BRADBURY:
No, but I have seen in one of the reports that Greg Combet was quoted so I suspect that there's been some attempt to verify these matters. But the fact remains that we do have, as far as I can see, a family has been told this, or asserting that that's the case – we've got no reason to believe that that's not the case – so on the face of it, this is a matter that I think it is important for us to get the facts out there, particularly given that, I think for a lot of people, obviously this is a pretty vulnerable time if you're in that situation and you're facing the prospect of having to organise a burial and the last thing you need is for people to be making ridiculous and irresponsible claims about what the price of that is going to increase by.
HOST:
Nine days into the new carbon tax regime, you and your Ministerial colleagues are going to have a few spot fires like this to keep putting out, aren't you?
BRADBURY:
When you have a big change, there's always going to be some challenges through the implementation of it but I think on this particular point I've been very keen to get out there and to ensure that businesses are aware of their obligations, but equally I think it's really important that all of us as consumers, that we keep a close eye out and when we see suppliers or businesses we're dealing with increase their prices and blame those price increases on the carbon price, we should be asking questions. If you're doing the right thing as a business you've got nothing to worry about but it's important that if we see people jacking their prices up and then saying this is all because of the carbon price, if we ask for some justification and we're not satisfied with the answers we're getting then we should pick up the phone and call the ACCC. They have a dedicated hotline for enquiries which is 1300 303 609 and they're certainly willing and ready to accept your calls.
HOST:
Would it be as simple as having the carbon price listed on the docket like it does with the GST? So consumers know what they are paying?
BRADBURY:
No, look it's quite difficult to do that in a sense because the reality is that some businesses may not pass on any of the increase in their costs. It's probably not all that dissimilar to an increase in the price of petrol or a one-off increase in the cost of wages. These are the sorts of things that businesses face every day. They're impacts that affect their costs and with increasing costs they have to make judgements about the extent to which they're in a position to pass on those increases to their customers, in some cases because of competition they'll choose not to do that but in the end we would anticipate that for many businesses they will also be engaging in action to reduce their dependency on energy, reduce their greenhouse gases and as a result reducing any liability they might be subject to.
HOST:
David, you know the story's gone global, I was on an American website this morning that said ‘Aussie death tax - Paying to park dad in this Melbourne cemetery is going to cost more'. They're talking about this in the United States!
BRADBURY:
Well it just goes to show. I think there is an obligation on us all to be responsible in the way in which we deal with these matters. I saw that Greg Hunt was out there jumping onto this as if somehow – I think the comments he made were that the carbon tax would follow you to the grave. He knows better. He knows better. It may be that there was a staff member somewhere that was a bit ill-informed made a comment but Greg Hunt knows that none of these funeral operators are directly liable, and to the extent that there is any impact at all - and certainly all the major funeral operators are saying they haven't seen any evidence of that yet – to the extent that there's any impact it's certainly not worth beating up as he sought to do.
HOST:
Nice to talk to you David, thank you very much.
BRADBURY:
Good to talk to you both.