Retail billionaire Gerry Harvey might not be backing down from his contention that the Government should scrap the GST exemption for goods purchased from overseas, but he is backing away from the furore his campaign has caused.
Harvey has admitted that he has been stung by the criticism of him and his business since a coalition of retailers, including Harvey Norman, David Jones and Myer, started campaigning for the Government to axe the GST exemption on goods worth less than $1,000 purchased from overseas.
He told The Age that the abuse had been particularly nasty on social media sites and blogs.
”You might have got a nasty phone call or a letter back in the old days but now anything slightly controversial, these people, whoever they might be, they go for you zealously and with hatred all over Twitter,” he said.
”If you are a CEO of a company and you speak out and then the board gets involved… it is suicidal. Because of my profile, I then get all these threats and people home in on me.”
But while Harvey has conceded that the timing of the campaign was poor, coming as it has in the middle of the post-Christmas sales season, he says the broad principle at the heart of the retailers’ campaign still needs to be addressed.
”What we are talking about is someone buying a guitar in New York, for instance, and having it sent over here 30% cheaper. It is giving that overseas retailer the advantage. It makes you think, ‘I am paying all the bills, creating jobs, and this guy is getting the sale and doesn’t contribute anything to our society’.”
But the big retailers’ have again come under fire from their smaller colleagues, with the Fair Import Alliance – and organisation that represents groups including the Australian Retailers’ Association – again criticising the campaign run by Harvey and fellow billionaire Solomon Lew.
Russell Zimmerman, executive director of the ARA and spokesperson for the Fair Import Alliance argues individual shoppers buying from overseas is not a problem, but importers who are exploiting the $1,000 threshold by buying goods from overseas in multiple, small lots, is a real concern.
The Alliance is backing moves by Federal Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor to crack down on compliance.
“Even if the GST threshold for imported goods was lowered or abolished tomorrow, it still wouldn’t solve the long-term issue of individuals and businesses rorting the system to the detriment of Australian retailers and wholesalers,” Zimmerman says.
“What requires serious Government consideration is how our current regulatory environment allows misuse of the system by businesses importing numerous packages under the GST threshold over a significant period and then opening temporary pop-up stores or selling the goods on eBay GST free.”
And in a slightly ironic twist, retail unions have also slammed the big retailers’ campaign. Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association national secretary Joe De Bryun said he doubted the retailers’ predictions of widespread job losses and said they were using estimates that 30,000 jobs could be lost from the sector for “dramatic effect”.
James was the editor and publisher of SmartCompany and LeadingCompany for five years. He is now the Australian Financial Review‘s companies & markets editor, and a former BRW editor.
