Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I could be unkind and say that is 20 minutes of my life I will never get back again. How far has the once proud Labor Party sunk? This is not the Labor Party of Hawke and Keating, who understood the national interest. This is the Labor Party of Bill Shorten, the member for Maribyrnong, who wants to find the quickest route to the Lodge and be buggered what he will do in the interim to the national interest. That is what this debate is about. The debate here is about the national interest. In particular, it is about hardworking Australian farmers—in my case in the electorate of Barker, whether they be in the Riverland, in the south-east, in the Mallee or in the Barossa. Hardworking Australian farmers have invested their hard-earned money and need the assistance of backpackers to do the heavy lifting at harvest time, during periods of peak labour demand.

I should say, and I hope it is not forgotten in this debate, that it is interesting that we are having a debate, effectively, about the rate of taxation for foreign workers when we have high levels of unemployment in this country. We need to always remember that we should be steering the ship of government, if you like, towards ensuring Australians find their way into employment. But, as I speak to my constituents, very many of them tell me that, unfortunately, many of these unemployed Australians do not want to do this work. I know lots about horticulture. My father was an onion farmer. I know this work is heavy, hard and dusty. My formative years were spent moving irrigation pipes around our property. The worst decision I ever made was to tell my father I could lift one, because he then put me to work fairly consistently doing more of that. Like I said, we are here to pursue the national interest and, sadly, the Labor Party has forgotten about that.

We heard from the member for McMahon that this measure does not have the support of the National Farmers Federation. That is not right—and the member for Hunter knows it. The NFF supported a 19 per cent rate, just like they now support the 15 per cent rate. We heard about uncertainty. Who is creating the uncertainty in this debate? This matter ought to have been resolved six months or more ago, but, instead of sitting down in a mature and constructive way to work with us, the member for Hunter and, presumably, his leader were working on ways to create division—not unity but division and uncertainty for people in my electorate. It is the kind of uncertainty that causes real economic harm. There has been a deal of misinformation in this campaign run by the Labor Party to try and paint a picture of dysfunction and chaos. The first bit of misinformation that I will correct is this: backpacker numbers have been in steep decline since 2012, long before there was a discussion about effective tax rates. If we are talking about misinformation, let's also talk about the misinformation circulating that somehow it was a coalition decision to arrive at a tax rate of 32½ per cent. Wrong. It was an application made by the Australian Taxation Office.

Ms Chesters interjecting—

If the member for Bendigo will listen, she will get the good oil. A decision was taken by the Australian Taxation Office to take three separate matters to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. On each of those occasions, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal indicated that the backpacker here under a 417 visa was in fact a foreign worker and was subject to foreign workers tax at 32½ per cent. So this has not been a debate about the coalition wanting to set the rate at 32½ per cent; rather the coalition indicated that 32½ per cent is inappropriate. Members of the backbench and the executive, guided through work of the backbench agriculture committee, supported a lower rate of taxation—because 19 is less than 32.

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