Swan rejects Harvey's retail 'whinge'
- 23 December, 2011 14:46
- Comments 3
Treasurer Wayne Swan says it's just not Christmas if retailer Gerry Harvey isn't whingeing about soft sales.
The co-founder of Harvey Norman has been highly critical of the rise of international online shopping, which he says is threatening Australian jobs and businesses.
In particular, he is concerned that online purchases under $1000 do not attract a GST, creating an uneven playing field for local retailers.
But now the company has joined the offshore online retailing world by launching a shopping portal, based at a Harvey Norman outlet in Ireland, to sell GST-free computer games to Australian consumers.
Harvey says it's highly likely the company will soon start selling tax-free laptops, computers, digital cameras, mobile phones and iPads on offshore websites.
Swan defended the GST threshold on goods bought offshore, saying a Productivity Commission report into the issue found it wasn't the cause of retailers' woes.
"I can't remember a Christmas where Gerry Harvey wasn't whingeing," he told ABC Radio on Friday.
"Back when we put the original stimulus package in place he spent a lot of time whingeing about that, but ultimately it did lift consumption in Australia."
Harvey responded, saying he wasn't a whinger and just wanted to protect the whole retail sector, not only his business.
"To call me a whinger when you are poll-driven, that's just an illusion," he told ABC Radio.
He told Swan: "I've been telling you and your government for a long time ... you have a major problem: the GST. You thought it was more important to think about the votes you were going to get."
Swan said the government was working its way through the Productivity Commission's recommendations.
"It found the cost of actually applying the GST to sales below $1000 was prohibitive," he said.
"It's not a panacea for some of the challenges retailers face at the moment."
Harvey said the commission's report was a waste of time and that he hadn't bothered to read it.
He said that when the commission's staff interviewed him as part of the consultation process, he got the impression they had "a pre-determined point of view".
"I think it cost us a lot of money for the Productivity Commission and I think we got nothing out of it," he said.
Swan pointed out that not all online shopping was done on overseas websites, saying many of the parcels arriving at post offices came from Australian stores.
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Comments
PereNoel
It's just not Christmas if Wayne Swan isn't bashing businesses...
gnome
Not just at Christmas, Noel (!), Whine Swan can do it anytime...
More seriously, it seems that Gerry Harvey thinks he can turn the clock back to that glorious time when he started about forty years ago.
It ain't gonna happen, no matter how much he whinges. He seems to be in permanent denial of reality if he really thinks the GST is the sum of his problems.
The GST exemption on low value personal imports is a very small part of the difference between landed cost and local retail prices.
Brendon O'Connor
It is highly ironical that the tax that punishes the poor and rewards the rich (GST) is coming home to roost for the wealthy. Let us see the next call for GST to be abolished as it is unfair on business owners. No one listened when the same cry was made before GST was introduced about how unfair it was on the poor who spend all their income each week.
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