THE hip-pocket ramifications of the Federal Government's proposed emissions trading scheme (ETS) are beginning to alarm country Australia's rural and regional businesses.
In the lead-up to the Copenhagen climate conference in December - where world leaders will be scrutinised for their efforts to cut carbon - it's becoming increasingly clear Labor's emissions reduction laws have the bush worried.
None more so than the CEO of the Toowoomba-based Home Ice Cream enterprise, Wayne Reisinger, as well as the general manager of Swickers, Jeff Castledine, who oversees Kingaroy's equally famous pork abattoir.
Both hold grave fears about the potentially harsh climate change legislation envisaged by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong.
Speaking at the company's headquarters, it's immediately evident that Mr Reisinger has done his homework on the issue.
The facts, as he sees them, just don't add up.
It's the reason National Party Senator Ron Boswell last week toured inland Queensland businesses to alert country people to "the significant impacts" posed by Australia's proposed ETS.
The burly Senator says while "the big end of town" in the shape of the mines, paper and steel industries have voiced their opinions ahead of the introduction of legislation, the likely impacts on smaller businesses like Home Ice Cream also need consideration.
"No-one has heard what it (the ETS) is going to impact - what it is going to do to rural and regional Australia," he said. "The impact is going to be significant."
He says he is trying to make people aware of the implications, including potential job losses, if power bills rise by 40-50 percent.
His concerns were echoed by Mr Reisinger, who said an effective $20/tonne tax on carbon dioxide emissions would have "a considerable impost" on Home Ice Cream.
"It's the equivalent of taking our company taxation from 30pc to 60pc, and possibly even higher," Mr Reisinger said.
Essentially, this is a story about a company's carbon footprint down the track, with electricity consumption levels under the proposed ETS poised to play a critical role in the company's long-term well-being.
It's not as though Home Ice Cream's management has been on the back foot over the issue, since it sought to gain operating efficiencies by putting in power management systems on its large compressors some years ago, with mixed results.
The point to make here is that when a company installs a computer management system to oversee demand on its compressors, then it's already adopting best practice efficiency levels.
"So all these guys (small businesses) are doing their best, trying to cut down their carbon footprints," Senator Boswell said.
Time and again the discussion focused on the likely impacts to the bottom line of a company like Home Ice Cream.
It's worth underscoring the energy-intensive nature of its operations, which involve three levels of cooling - down to minus 15deg C, minus 35deg C and minus 45deg C for its pasteurisation and liquid-chilling vessels, freezers and deep refrigeration equipment, respectively.
So would an effective doubling of company tax through ETS compliance have a knock-on effect in regards to employment levels?
The short answer is that "laying off workers is not on the horizon", according to Mr Reisinger.
So the next obvious question to ask is if raising prices might be one way to weather the ETS storm. But the reality is it would only undermine the company's competitiveness, as well as impacting on any plans to modernise or expand the business.
"The last time I saw our sales reduce was when wholesale sales tax on ice creams went from 10pc to 12pc, prompting an 18-month sales decline," Mr Reisinger said.
Shrugging off the effects of the global financial crisis, Home Ice Cream managed single digit growth during 2008 and currently is experiencing similar fortunes during 2009.
Never mind the proposition of a carbon dioxide tax level, as has been mooted, topping $40/t, Mr Reisinger is adamant that levels of this magnitude would see the company "running revenue neutral" and barely able to generate profits.
For a company that has been building its operation to the extent it has a permanent workforce of 150, rising to 250 in the summer season, since its inception in the 1960s, these are troubling times.
Even if the Federal Government's proposed emission reduction laws don't come into effect until 2011, companies like Home Ice Cream could be required to pay between $200,000 to $300,000 for carbon permits.
"It's huge, it's big and it's got to be found (somehow)," Mr Reisinger said.
A final word from Senator Boswell: "The big companies are big enough to buy the (carbon) permits. But it's a different story for smaller businesses."
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