{"id":913103,"date":"2026-10-02T05:44:19","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T05:44:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/913103\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T05:44:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T05:44:19","slug":"regional-queensland-businesses-facing-tough-decisions-in-face-of-latest-rates-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/913103\/","title":{"rendered":"Regional Queensland businesses facing tough decisions in face of latest rates rise"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nick and Amanda Kuhn run an organic egg business in the rural town of Tiaro, about 220 kilometres north of Brisbane.<\/p>\n

The pair say their family-run operation has been struggling to slow the “snowball effect” of rising costs.<\/p>\n

“There comes a point where you just can’t keep wearing the cost because you’re wearing so much but you can’t keep charging more for your product,” Mr Kuhn said.<\/p>\n

“It’s a very fine balancing act.”<\/p>\n

A recent report from Business Chamber Queensland found confidence in the economy was at its lowest level since the Global Financial Crisis.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It found 95 per cent of businesses were feeling an impact of higher fuel prices, with at least 60 per cent reporting higher costs from freight, transport and cashflow issues.<\/p>\n

‘Less profit for the business’<\/p>\n

The Reserve Bank lifted the cash rate<\/a> for the fourth time this year on Wednesday, pushing rates to their highest level since 2011, at 4.6 per cent.<\/p>\n

Mr Kuhn said his home mortgage repayments increased by “roughly $1,000 a month”, due to the hikes.<\/p>\n

“It’s harder to service loans. It’s harder to get new loans if you want equipment or other things,” he said.<\/p>\n

Businesses have now been banned from adding a surcharge to card payments, which Mr Kuhn said helped cover expenses including petrol and wages.<\/p>\n

“It’s going to cost us a couple of thousand dollars to wear that, it’s less profit for the business,” he said.<\/p>\n

To recoup any losses, Mr Kuhn told customers there would be a price hike on egg cartons.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Christopher Hall has been forced to raise the price of his honey products for the first time in a decade to stay afloat. (Supplied: Christopher Hall)<\/p>\n

Hervey Bay honey producer Christopher Hall was also grappling with whether to increase the price of his raw honey buckets to $16 per kilogram.<\/p>\n

“In the previous 10 years we’ve just absorbed the increased costs because it’s important to maintain honey as cheap as I possibly can,” Mr Hall said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We simply can’t do that anymore.”<\/p>\n

Mr Hall said the extra revenue would cover rising petrol prices and growing cost of plastic containers, which is up by nearly 40 per cent this year.<\/p>\n

Tough times ahead<\/p>\n

CQ University regional economics development professor John Rolfe said it could take up to 18 months for this week’s interest rate hike to “wash through the system”.<\/p>\n

Professor Rolfe said businesses needed to make calculated spending decisions to ensure they can survive.<\/p>\n

“Be prepared to make an early call about cutting costs so they don’t get caught out,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Professor John Rolfe says it could take 18 months for the interest rate rises to “wash through the system”. (Supplied: CQ University)<\/p>\n

But Professor Rolfe said not to expect relief any time soon.<\/p>\n

“Governments are under pressure to not spend as much to try and get inflation down,” he said.<\/p>\n

Despite the struggles, Mr Hall said he and his business will endure.<\/p>\n

\u00a0“We have had to increase prices to stay afloat but small producers do make the world go round,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nick and Amanda Kuhn run an organic egg business in the rural town of Tiaro, about 220 kilometres…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":913104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164,21331],"class_list":["post-913103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-wide-bay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=913103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/913104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=913103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=913103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=913103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}