QANTAS has joined the growing list of corporations concerned about the impact of the Government's emissions trading scheme, claiming its domestic operating costs would increase by $100 million.

As the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, dismissed the growing complaints from corporate Australia as the normal "argy-bargy" before negotiations over the details, the airline's chief executive, Geoff Dixon, said Qantas would be "quite severely affected". "We can't absorb a $100 million cost," he said yesterday.

"I believe that will make domestic aviation much dearer and may well have an impact on domestic tourism."

Already, the head of Woodside Petroleum, Don Voelte, has claimed that unless his company receives special adjustment assistance, an increase in the price of gas will jeopardise $60 billion of investments in the North-West Shelf and cruel lucrative exports of liquefied natural gas.

But the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, said it was too early for Mr Voelte to be making such claims because the details of the scheme had not even been finalised and industry would be consulted along the way.

"This [gas] industry is very important to Australia and we do recognise that there does need to be additional assistance to energy-intensive, trade-exposed industries," he said.

In Brisbane yesterday, the Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, was told by the presidents and chief executives of 35 business organisations not to move "too far or too fast" with the emissions trading scheme.

Of most concern were the big polluting industries that would not be eligible for compensation and the many small and medium businesses that face higher energy costs with no compensation.

Business submissions on the emissions trading scheme are due by the end of September but the modelling by Treasury, which will provide more details, will not be done until October. Consequently, the businesses yesterday said they would reserve their final position on the scheme until after the modelling was done.