Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

My electorate, Lingiari, produces around $250 million worth of agricultural and horticultural product a year. We are right in the middle of the mango season now. We have seen reports of mangoes on the ground that will never get to market because the growers cannot get a workforce. During the approximately six-week period that they require labour, they need about 2½ thousand workers—for six weeks. This is in a labour market where we have a very low unemployment rate generally, so there is not an available workforce to do this work. It has to come from somewhere else, and it has traditionally been the backpackers. These businesses have suffered immeasurably as a direct result of the actions of this government.

We heard the member for Hunter retell the story about the National Farmers' Federation and their various positions on this tax proposal, but the simple facts are that those people currently involved in picking mangoes in the Northern Territory have suffered as a direct result of the stupidity and inanity of the government and for no other reason. The uncertainty which has been created is all their own work. Let's just remind ourselves—when Treasurer Hockey said he was going to be levelling the playing field in 2015, he said the government would change the residency rules from 1 July 2016, and he went on to say:

This means they will be taxed at 32.5 per cent from their first dollar of income.

You can imagine what went around the world: 'Don't bother coming to Australia because you'll be paying 32.5 per cent in tax of every dollar earnt, even though you're only a temporary worker for a short space of time in vital industries.' The advice from the Parliamentary Library was:

What do we know of the result? We know now that, over the last year to June this year, working holiday-maker numbers from the United Kingdom have dropped by nine per cent; from Ireland, they recorded a 46 per cent drop; Italy was down 24 per cent; and France was down 14 per cent. Why is this? Again, it is because of the bunyip aristocracy sitting back and not wanting to be involved in the discussion and the debate which actually affected them and their constituents and those people taking product out of their industries.

Thinking about these arguments, the member for Mayo again talked about the difference in apparent pay, as they see it. Those holiday-makers are currently—let's emphasise 'currently'—paying zero tax on every dollar earned and that has historically been the case. We did not attempt to change it when we were in government, as the member for Hunter said earlier on. It was not changed by the Howard government. This is being done in a capricious manner by the Liberal Party and the National Party to try and fix up their budget problems, which are all of their own making. And when they say to us that they want to level the playing field by introducing a 32.5 per cent tax and we object, we get pilloried. So they have now come back to 19 per cent. Of course as recently as Sunday, when being interviewed on TheInsiders, the finance minister said: 'Nineteen per cent is as far as we are we prepared to go. The budget cannot afford to cut taxes for foreign workers any further.' That did not last long.

Members of the National Party whose electorates are involved with horticulture or agriculture or tourism industry initially argued for 32.5 per cent and then argued for 19 per cent and today, apparently, are able to argue for 15 per cent because that happens to be a magic number that everyone likes. There is no science to it. It is a proposal which has come down because, well, it is different—it is not quite what the government wanted and it is not what the Labor Party wanted; therefore, let's strike a happy medium and go to 15 per cent. What is the justification? 'We do not have one.'

See this speech in context