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

I always know that I'm getting somewhere when the Labor Party keep interrupting me, calling quorums and raising points of order that are fallacious. In response to Senator O'Neill's interjection, 'You should take it up with the AEC,' you can be assured that I have, because the AEC didn't bother to tell anybody, including either of the candidates, within the time limit for appeal to the Court of Disputed Returns that there were 200 cases of double voting in the electorate of Herbert. We've all heard the often-mouthed comment of 'vote early and vote often'. You often hear it around union circles.

Getting back to my point: there are very few of us, particularly across Northern Australia. There is Mr Entsch, me, Mr Christensen, Michelle Landry, Senator O'Sullivan, and three from the Northern Territory, including you, Madam Acting Deputy President McCarthy, and Melissa Price from the north of Western Australia. Out of a parliament of 250, that's not many. So you can understand why it's not always front of mind.

In 1945, the then Treasurer, Mr Chifley, introduced amendments to the Income Tax Assessment Act to create a tax zone allowance scheme in an attempt to refer some fairness to the uneven taxation burden borne by regional and non-metropolitan taxpayers. In his remarks to the House of Representatives, after noting that the district and regional allowances provided to workers in rural and regional Australia at the time were designed to address those inadequacies, Mr Chifley said that:

the disabilities of uncongenial climatic conditions, isolation, or relatively high living costs

were some of the disadvantages. He alluded to the fairness test later in the same debate when he detailed the need for the tax zone allowance scheme. He said:

It must be admitted that people living in remote areas incur greater expenditure when they send their children to secondary schools, or when they send their wives and families away for holidays, than are those who live near the coast or in more settled areas. Therefore, I make no apology for recommending the zoning proposal.

In those days, in 1945, the 40 pound and 80 pound allowances given to people living in rural and regional Australia were adequate and did, to a degree, address some of the disadvantages that people living outside of the metropolitan areas suffered. Had those figures been indexed since that time, the allowances would now be something like $5,000 and between $15,000 and $20,000. If those allowances were provided now, they would, in some small way, compensate for the additional cost of living that confronts people living in remote Australia.

I think it is high time that the parliament, in particular, had a look at this proposal, at the disadvantages of living in the 'second Australia', and had another look at that zone tax rebate scheme. It is a matter that I think should be looked at. It could be relatively easily addressed and it could actually provide some real incentive to help those living in regional and remote communities. I was up in the north-west of Queensland the other day and one of the councils was saying that they have a position available but simply could not offer the sort of money to get someone out of Brisbane or Sydney to come right up into the north-west of Queensland to work there. The job is good, and once they got there people would love it, but the cost of living is so much more, so the council, in this instance, would have had to pay an amount for wages that they wouldn't be able to justify. That's where the zone tax scheme originally came in and it should be looked at again.

I've put a proposition to the Prime Minister, and my colleagues have joined me, that the current zone tax rebate scheme should be seriously looked at again. I'm not going to suggest amounts or boundaries, but it really does need a proper investigation by a properly constituted and learned group—a committee, a forum—to see how it could be increased. I would hope that senators who have an interest in remote and regional Australia might join me in this push to try to get some fairness for those who live outside the capital cities.