Brumby’s is a national chain of bakeries in Australia who may have just gotten themselves into a wee bit of trouble.
Seems they hoped to blame the carbon tax, actually price on carbon, for otherwise normal price increases:
In the memo, Brumby’s managing director Deane Priest says there are some simple things franchisees can do to find extra sales.
“We are doing an RRP (recommended retail price) review at present which is projected to be in line with CPI (Consumer Price Index), but take the opportunity to make some moves in June and July,” Mr Priest wrote in the June edition of Backmix – an internal publication.
“Let the carbon tax take the blame, after all your costs will be going up due to it.”
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is now investigating. I’d note that a business found making false claims can suffer up to $1.1m in fines.
The ACCC has set up a hotline for those concerned they are being exploited by retailers.
Ah, the coming months will be fun… claims, counter claims and investigations by the ACCC while Tony Abbott and the LNP claiming every sneeze is due to that “great big new tax” on everthing.
The Twitterverse is now baying for blood and demanding a boycott. Your call reader if you wish to do so.
Well done Australia for handling this debate and major reform with such grace, intelligence and concern for the future!
/end sarcasm
Watching the Deniers 
Thanks for this story – I made a nice blog about it because Canada is still denying carbon taxes as a partial solution.
Tony Abbott wrongly claims taxes hit every one ,but in fact, taxes are as frequently used to nudge society into a new direction as frequently as they are used to gain extra revenue.
New taxes on fags don’t hit non smokers like me ,but might just encourage my boss to finally quit for good this time.
Carbon pollution is a sin and this tax addresses that.
Local bakeries than generate their own electricity off roof panels and sell at the shop could bankrupt the regional bakery selling its bread over wide areas by carbon-burning truck !
An interesting follow up…some cluey academic did some cost modelling of the carbon price impact on a $25 cake and found it would be only 10 cents!
It would be interesting to see the response of all the Bolts out there to this story:
On the one hand, the government is “totalitarian” for policing misleading claims about the impact of carbon pricing on the prices of goods and services. But then they despise the solar industry because it’s competing with the traditional forms of energy production, and is currently more expensive.