THE SOUTHERN
Part of the Farmer Group Rural Newspapers Covering Victoria Published since 1986
JUNE, 2016
THE IMPORTANCE OF AMINO ACID NUTRITION PAGE 12
WINTER WARMTH PAGES 16-17
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Stop delaying and axe ‘backpacker tax’ pack Farm organisations unhappy with the coalition’s six-month introduction delay
CAMPAIGN TRAIL: Deputy Prime Minister, Leader of the Nationals and Federal Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, Barnaby Joyce, has been on the campaign trail around Victoria lending his support for Nationals’ candidates while talking to dairy farmers about their recent struggle in the wake of processor cuts to milk pricing.
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THE delayed introduction of the controversial backpacker tax has attracted widespread opposition from the agriculture industry as it provides no certainty to farmers that they will have a workforce to help during the next harvest. The Federal Government announced that any decision on its plan to tax working holiday visa holders as non-residents at 32.5 per cent would be reviewed after the election, with a final decision on whether to enforce it to be delayed until January 1, 2017. During his recent tour around Victoria, Deputy Prime Minister and Federal Minister for Agriculture and Water Barnaby Joyce said that he “quite clearly” stated that the government would have the backpacker tax issue resolved before it came in and he has done “precisely that”. “We have said the conditions that are in place now will continue until the first of January, so if you are intending on coming to Australia and it is in the middle of July then there is absolutely no reason
BY JODIE FLEMING
jfleming@ nemedia.com.au
why you shouldn’t come,” Mr Joyce said. He added that the tax could not be “got rid of” because there are a whole range of issues that may require legislation which cannot be addressed until after the election as the government is currently in a caretaker role. “We aren’t going to get legislation through both houses of Parliament in a caretaker mode. “We have made sure after hearing the concerns of so many people that we have, as we said we would, landed a position before the implementation of a new tax rate which would have happened on the first of July, now we have got that extension to the first of January. “This will allow us time so we can work through an outcome that deals with this over the long term,” Mr Joyce said. Continued page 9
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