Ben Packham From: The Australian

December 23, 2011 12:48PM

Outspoken retailer Gerry Harvey. Picture: Stephen Cooper Source: Herald Sun

WAYNE Swan has branded retailer Gerry Harvey a whinger after the Harvey Norman boss declared he'd given up trying to compete with GST-free online retailers.

“I can't remember a Christmas where Gerry Harvey wasn't whingeing,” the Treasurer said.

“You might well recall back when we put the original stimulus package in place he spent a lot of time whingeing about that, but ultimately it did lift consumption in Australia and he did very well out of it.”

Mr Harvey has announced he will set up a online video game business based in Ireland to take advantage of the $1000 GST-free threshold on goods purchased overseas.

“Here, you've got every government agency you can think about on your back all day,” the retail chief said.

“If I've got an overseas website, they can all go and get nicked. They can't sue me, they can't threaten me, they can't do anything.”

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AUSTRALIA's biggest electrical retailer, Harvey Norman, will start shipping tax-free computer games from Ireland, undercutting its domestic stores.

Domestic retailers have urged the government to lower the tax-free threshold for imported goods, but a recent Productivity Commission report found doing so would cost more than the government would raise in extra taxes.

It found discounts offered by online retailers were often far greater than the 10 per cent caused by the GST.

“The Productivity Commission looked at all of these issues and it didn't find that the cause of the problems with retail across the board was this $1000 threshold,” Mr Swan told the ABC.

Mr Harvey said the government's refusal to act on the issue threatened Australian jobs.

He later responded to Mr Swan, saying he wasn't a whinger and only wanted to protect the retail sector, and not just his business.

“To call me a whinger when you are poll-driven, that's just an illusion,” he told ABC Radio today.

He told Mr Swan: “I've been telling you and your government for a long time ... you have a major problem: the GST. You thought it was more important to think about the votes you were going to get.”

Mr Harvey says he's worried about retail jobs.

“I understand why consumers want to get a cheap deal, I do too, but the big problem we've got is that 1.2 million Australians are employed in retail,” Mr Harvey said.

“If you drop 200,000 or 300,000 or 400,000 people out of retail, the domino effect is you'll drop a million people out of employment. So this is a really big, big issue.”

Wayne Swan takes aim at 'whinger' Gerry Harvey | The Australian