LARGE corporations could pay as much under Tony Abbott's parental leave plan as they would in the early years of the government's emissions trading scheme, which the Coalition voted down saying it was a ''great big new tax'' that would cascade through the economy.
Mining and manufacturing companies such as Bluescope Steel, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, whose complaints about the ETS were backed by the Coalition, appear to face similar, or greater, liabilities under the Coalition plan to charge a 1.7 per cent levy on a company's taxable income to fund parental leave.
Bluescope Steel would have to pay about $19 million for carbon permits in the first year of the ETS, at an estimated price of $26 a tonne. Based on its 2008 pre-tax profits the company would face an annual bill of about $16 million under Mr Abbott's plan, a Sydney Morning Herald analysis shows.
Rio Tinto has said its ETS bill would be about $130 million in 2010-11. Its parental leave levy would be about $150 million. BHP Billiton's reported emissions would cost about $300 million, while its parental leave levy would be about $268 million.
Asked yesterday why his new tax was more acceptable than Labor's, Mr Abbott said ''there are a number of very important differences. First of all, it's much smaller. Second, it's a much more comprehensible benefit which is going to be delivered; a practical, direct benefit to hundreds of thousands of families.''
He declined to say whether it would increase the cost of a loaf of bread, but said it was ''a relatively modest levy … and I think it is something that ought to be bearable by those large companies in the national interest''.
The Small Business Minister, Craig Emerson, criticised the levy's flow-through costs, turning the tables on the Coalition's anti-ETS campaign.
''Tony Abbott's great big new tax will mean higher prices for consumers in almost every grocery store, department store, petrol station and bank in the country,'' Dr Emerson said,
The ETS raises more than $40 billion in its first four years from about 1000 big polluters, but returns a larger amount in assistance to the hardest-hit industries and low- and middle-income households. It does not begin to impose a net cost until 2016-17 as the carbon price rises and assistance begins to decline.
Many mining companies won generous promises of assistance under the ETS, to avoid them becoming uncompetitive with companies overseas.
The Coalition's parental levy will raise $2.7 billion a year, or almost $11 billion over the first four years, from Australia's 3000 most profitable businesses.
The Opposition has yet to reveal details of how it would work, so the Herald has based its calculations on pre-tax profits.
Mr Abbott said the ETS would push food prices up by 5pc, cost 126,000 regional jobs and cause 16 coal mines to close.
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