Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity to rise and speak to this matter of public importance on employment. It is rather absurd that we are talking about what we are trying to do to create jobs on the day the Labor Party have signed a Faustian pact with both Senator Jacqui Lambie and One Nation on the backpacker tax. What is their proposal? Their proposal is that they will have a tax rate for foreign workers at 10.5 per cent, whilst Australian workers are working in the same field at 19 per cent, if they are above the tax-free threshold of $18,200. Obviously, what this means for Australian workers is that they are at a disadvantage. Obviously what the Labor Party have signed up for today with Senator Jacqui Lambie and One Nation is something that actually gives an impetus not to employ Australian workers in the agricultural sector.

We understand that you cannot have a tax rate at over 32 per cent, because no-one from overseas would turn up and we need that labour. But to go to the absurd position where we are offering a rate of 10.5 per cent means that if you are in the field and someone next to you is from Provence they will probably be on a cheaper tax rate. If they are from the Steppes at Ulaanbaatar, they will be on a cheaper tax rate. If they are from Umbria, they will be on a cheaper tax rate. If they from good old County Cork, they will be on a cheaper tax rate. Who proposed this? The Labor Party.

This is a complete disincentive to Australian workers, and today, of all things, Labor have an MPI on Australian labour. How on earth? We could never get something like that through. How did the party that are supposed to represent Australian workers manage to come up with that? How did they come up with a proposal that makes it a strategic advantage to employ people from overseas over Australian workers? Where is the logic in that? We stick to our position of a 19 per cent tax rate so that they are comparable. The Labor Party are coming up with a policy merely to tear the scab off an issue that had been resolved. Who are they putting on the fire as they tear off this scab? Australian workers. Australian workers are the ones they are attacking. It is bizarre that someone from the National Party has to stand up on behalf of Australian workers—Australian farm workers—because you today, with Senator Jacqui Lambie and One Nation, your new cabal of friends, have announced that you are going to come up with a disadvantage for employing Australian labour.

You say, 'Well, maybe it is just there,' but, no, their desire to take off the scab and create dissent and turmoil is in other areas as well. It is at the Adani coalmine, in Central Queensland, which would employ up to 5,000 people on construction and 4,000 ongoing workers. Who fights against it? The Labor Party fights against it. The Labor Party takes up the cudgels against the working men and women of Central Queensland. Why? Because it is advantageous. It gets them closer to the Australian Greens. Their battle is not for the Australian worker any more. Their battle is in Balmain. Their battle is with the Greens. They have given up on representing regional Australia. They used to be the party of shearers. They used to be the party of tradesmen. They used to be the party of miners. But that is no longer so. They have given up on that. Now they are the party trying to fight their battle street by street in Annandale, all the way up Trafalgar Street and all the way down to Glebe wharf. That is where the battle is. It is no longer a matter of looking after Australian workers. It was absolutely beyond compare seeing the shadow Treasurer and the member for Hunter, who in this place has not asked a question in the last year—he had a crack at it today but got kicked out—which is better than the shadow water minister, who has never asked me a question at all.

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