Widely circulated email falsely claiming carbon tax will cost Nolan’s Transport more than $3 million a year still plaguing company
By Brad Gardner | March 20, 2012
An email falsely claiming the carbon tax will cost Nolan’s Interstate Transport more than $3 million is again spamming inboxes, causing headaches for the family-owned business.
Nolan’s compliance manager Darren Nolan says the email, which began doing the rounds following Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s visit to the company last year, has resurfaced.
The anonymous email attempts to use Nolan’s Transport to fan outrage against Labor and the Greens over the carbon tax, and Nolan has questioned its timing in light of Queensland’s upcoming election.
Despite the company reporting that it emitted 28,914 tonnes of CO2 last financial year, the email falsely claims emissions peaked at 144,700 tonnes. The email goes on to incorrectly state Nolan’s operating costs will go up by $3.32 million when the tax begins on July 1.
“We are very concerned about its impact on our company, but it wouldn’t cost us anything like the $3 million per year claimed in the email,” Nolan says.
“We’re sick of people using our business as a political pawn without checking the facts.”
He says Nolan’s has been “inundated” with phone calls from politicians, the public and media outlets because of the email, adding that he has received 15 calls today.
“There’s just not much we can do about it, except every time it pokes its head up we’re in damage control mode. We have to keep sending it back to everyone,” Nolan says.
He has taken to individually directing people to the company’s media statement on its website and asking them to send the correct information to those circulating the email.
“It is very frustrating, considering we didn’t send it. That’s the hard thing, we don’t know who sent it or how it’s been distributed. Whoever sent it, it’s definitely for political reasons,” Nolan says of the hoax email.
Nolan’s says the company is concerned it will not be able to pass on the carbon tax to its customers when it is applied to fuel used by the trucking industry.
The government has given the trucking industry a two-year exemption from the tax on fuel. The industry will pay an extra 6.85 cents per litre in the form of a higher fuel excise from July 1, 2014.
“The tax would also ignore the enormous investment we have made to meet the new emissions standards that have come in since the 1990s,” Nolan says.
The tax, which will begin at $23 per tonne, will apply to the top 500 emitters in Australia, which includes Nolan’s, from July 1 this year.