Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on an issue of critical importance to my constituents, which is the Productivity Commission review into remote area tax concessions. This review was initiated by the Treasurer late last year. The Productivity Commission have been working on this and recently released their draft report. I have to say on behalf of my constituents that they are very disappointing findings that the Productivity Commission have come up with, particularly in relation to fringe benefits tax concessions, which the Productivity Commission have recommended be removed.

I'll come back to the impact of that in a moment, but I want to illuminate the House on just what those remote communities in my electorate contribute to the Australian economy. The five shires surrounding the city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder produce around $10 billion worth of mineral product annually. The shire of Coolgardie, which has a population of about a thousand people, produces $3.2 billion worth of product on its own.

Those of us who live in regional areas understand that often the required skills are not available locally, and we completely except that mining businesses and other businesses support contractors and will fly in the necessary expertise. That is an important part of their business. However, we would like to see government policy and taxation policy encouraging people to live residentially because it's important that those communities are sustained, that they have a critical mass so we can have schools, we can have medical facilities and we can have functional operating sporting clubs, hence my great disappointment that the 50 per cent concession on residential housing has been recommended to be removed by the Productivity Commission. The corollary of this is, if a mining company flies in a worker, puts them up in a camp and provides them with meals, that is 100 per cent tax deductible as an operational expense under the current arrangements. If the same mining company decided that they would provide accommodation for that worker in the local town, in the local community, currently there is a 50 per cent concession, a fringe benefits tax concession. The Productivity Commission recommended that that 50 per cent concession be removed.

I want to reassure my community that I'll be fighting this recommendation tooth and nail. I've already had conversations with the Prime Minister and the Treasurer. I would like to see not only the status quo retained but, in fact, the 50 per cent concession increased to 100 per cent to put us on the same playing field as the fly-in fly-out worker.