Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As I mentioned in my speech in the second reading debate on this issue, I am concerned at the position of the fishing industry in particular as a result of the removal of the ability to immediately have claimed back the excise which is payable on the fuel. As the current situation now stands the fuel companies claim the excise back on behalf of the fishermen and so the fishermen only pay the price of the fuel and do not pay the excise at all. With this new arrangement under the bill, fishermen will now have to bring forward their payments effectively for three months. That will involve them in a cash flow problem, which I elaborated upon in my speech.

This bill contains a lot of good issues and very positive actions to help with fuel excise, and the transitional arrangements for two years, whilst not perfect, will ameliorate the impact on the fishing industry in that two-year period. But the Labor Party report in the committee, as I understand it, suggested that if these things were appropriate for two years then why not leave them in place permanently. As I indicated in my speech in the second reading debate, I am attracted to that proposition.

The fishing industry is undergoing fairly significant difficulties at the moment for a wide range of reasons, among them the price of fuel which, I repeat, the government has not caused and can do little about. No government around the world has much ability to do anything about that. There are difficulties with imported product and with the Representative Areas Program in the Great Barrier Reef. The Queensland Seafood Industry Association is in financial difficulties and is actually being propped up by the government at the present time. So the voice of the fishermen is very hard to hear because they are not organised and they do not have the money to pay staff to continue that work. The Australian Seafood Industry Council went into voluntary receivership just a week ago, I understand, which means that at national level now there is not a single voice speaking for the fishing industry. This has made it very difficult.

Again, as I said in my speech in the second reading debate, I always thought that the better way to deal with this—and it is an approach I pursued when I was minister for fisheries—is that we should have asked the fishermen to calculate what the cost to them would have been of this bringing forward of three months of the payment. I thought that in most cases it would not have been a large amount of money. If the fishermen could establish what it would cost them then I thought it would be well within the bounds of government finances to send every fisherman a cheque for that amount, and life could have moved on and they would have been able to come into the system without any financial cost to them. Unfortunately, that suggestion was not followed up. I still think it is the best suggestion and I ask the minister to indicate whether, if it was able to be established that there was a cost, the government might look at that some time down the track.

For the moment, the more immediate refund of the excise will be of some help. Those big fishing operations which have clerical staff, big boats and big turnovers will be able to handle this very easily because they have the staff to put in the claims as the fuel is purchased and they will get the money back relatively quickly. In some cases they may get the excise back before they have to pay it if they can get credit terms. But it is going to make it very difficult for the smaller fishermen. Very often the sole office support for the smaller fishermen is in the wife, who, as well as running the home and perhaps having a job herself, has to fill in the forms and post them to the tax office. I understand that for some reason the forms have to be on paper; they cannot be lodged electronically. I fail to understand why the tax office cannot accept them electronically, but they have to be on paper. The refund is made between four and 14 days. Again, in this day and age I cannot understand why the tax office could not refund electronically on the spot if the fishermen could get the claims in. I ask the minister representing the Treasurer in the chamber to get the tax office to consider whether this could be done electronically and whether the payments could be made almost instantaneously. In this day and age it should not be beyond the tax office to do that.

The proposal put by the government will help a little in that two-year period. But then what happens at the end of the two-year period? We are going to be facing the same sort of situation. That is why to a degree I am attracted by the Labor Party amendment. I am conscious, though, that this bill is principally bringing good news to rural and regional Australians—indeed to all Australians but I am particularly interested in rural and regional Australians. As an alternative to the Labor Party amendment, my proposal is to seek from the Treasurer an undertaking that, prior to 31 December 2007—that is 18 months away and six months before the two-year transitional period comes to an end—the government will conduct an investigation into the impact that the removal in a few days time of the early payment provision has had on fishermen. I would like the Treasurer to indicate that he would be prepared to have, within 18 months, an investigation into what affect that has had on fishermen. I would like the Treasurer to commit as well to reporting the results of that investigation or assessment to parliament before, say, 31 March 2008—still three months before the completion of this transitional arrangement.

If the assessment by the Treasurer shows that there has been a real impact or that there is some way we could better ameliorate the impact—perhaps going back to getting fishermen to establish what exactly it is going to cost them and the government making a decision in 18 months time to pay out the fishermen that amount—then that could be proposed when the results of the assessment are tabled in parliament. Minister, as an in alternative to the Labor Party amendment, would it be possible to get some form of undertaking from the Treasurer along the lines I have mentioned? If we can do that it will ameliorate some of the harsher impacts—fishermen will not be quite as well off as they are now—of the bringing forward by three months of the payment of excise. It will allow the matter to be looked at and if the fishing industry can make the case in 18 months time, when they can better understand the impact of the new arrangements, then it is something that could be reported on. If the Treasurer were able to give a commitment to not only make the assessment but also report to the parliament on the results of that assessment then I would be to a degree satisfied by that and it would enable me to proceed with this legislation at the earliest possible time.