{"id":375736,"date":"2026-04-01T03:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T03:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/375736\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T03:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T03:02:10","slug":"chalmers-says-small-business-paying-the-price-for-middle-east-conflict-as-he-unveils-support-measures-jim-chalmers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/375736\/","title":{"rendered":"Chalmers says small business \u2018paying the price\u2019 for Middle East conflict as he unveils support measures | Jim Chalmers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jim Chalmers has unveiled a suite of Covid-era support measures for businesses struggling with soaring fuel prices and the prime minister is set to address the nation in the latest sign the government is preparing for a more severe economic downturn from the US-Israel war on Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe war in the Middle East<\/a> is having an extreme impact on the global economy. Australians and Australian small businesses are paying the price for that,\u201d the treasurer told reporters on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The support package will include more generous Australian Taxation Office payment plans, doing away with penalties and interest on unpaid tax debts, and offering support to defer PAYG payments where the business has suffered a hit to their revenue \u201cdue to fuel supply issues\u201d.<\/p>\n

The ATO will also hold off on chasing unpaid tax debts.<\/p>\n

Anthony Albanese will deliver an address to the nation on Wednesday night at 7pm AEDT, where he\u2019s expected to encourage Australians to play their part in the fuel crisis, including helping to save fuel for areas that need it.<\/p>\n

The prime minister\u2019s office said it would be broadcast live across all television and radio networks simultaneously. Albanese is expected to detail the government\u2019s plans on the fuel issue and how they are responding.<\/p>\n

In further echoes of the pandemic\u2019s \u201cTeam Australia\u201d moment, the banks on Wednesday morning also announced they had put in place specialist teams to assist customers wrestling with the fuel crisis.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

Chalmers said \u201cthese are common sense steps that recognise and respond to the extraordinary circumstances we find ourselves in\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that the fallout [from the Iran<\/a> war] is affecting everyone, but we believe that by working together, if everybody does their bit, we can get through this difficult period.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom an economic point of view, this war can\u2019t end soon enough, but the consequences will linger for longer. And that\u2019s why, in the interim, we\u2019re working very closely together to try and shield Australians from the worst the world can throw at us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahead of the 12 May budget, the treasurer flagged that officials were now considering a wider range of economic scenarios, potentially including a long-lasting global oil shock that triggers a recession.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe longer the shock drags out, obviously, the harsher the consequences for our economy, whether that\u2019s measured by inflation \u2026 or by impacts on the labour market,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would remind people that we go into this quite severe global economic shock from a position of genuine relative economic strength.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new support package comes two days after Albanese announced a three-month halving of the fuel excise tax<\/a> that will lower the price of fuel by about 26c per litre at a cost of $1.5bn.<\/p>\n

There was also the temporary removal of road user charges for heavy vehicles, at an additional cost of $1.05bn.<\/p>\n

Economists believe the spike in fuel prices will push inflation and unemployment towards 5% over coming months and have pointed towards a painful stagflationary period that will heap pressure on households that were already struggling with high cost of living before the Middle East conflict.<\/p>\n

The government will have the fiscal firepower to deliver more relief measures in the May budget, according to analysis by Westpac, which estimated soaring commodity prices linked to global volatility will deliver a $60bn tax windfall over the five-year forward estimates period.<\/p>\n

\u201cAround $20bn of this uplift reflects the impact of the Middle East conflict, particularly via higher coal and LNG export prices,\u201d Westpac senior economist Pat Bustamante said, with high gold prices also contributing.<\/p>\n

This more than offset the $2.55bn cost of the fuel and road user charge support, Bustamante noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe federal treasurer has warned that the economic fallout from the Middle East conflict could be \u2018just as serious\u2019 as the GFC, the Covid\u201119 pandemic and Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there is a countervailing force: higher commodity prices and elevated inflation are lifting treasury tax collections.<\/p>\n

\u201cTax receipts can continue to rise even as real economic activity slows over the coming years, as we expect.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jim Chalmers has unveiled a suite of Covid-era support measures for businesses struggling with soaring fuel prices and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,113,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-375736","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}