ON Tuesday night Victorians who stayed up to watch Scott Morrison hand down his first budget saw the federal government provide some welcome relief for our agriculture industry.
Among the wins for rural Victorians was a $220 million investment in upgrading Murray Basin rail freight lines and $345 million for upgrading rural highways.
We have to give full credit to the federal government for making a firm commitment to delivering these much needed infrastructure projects to Victoria, especially the Murray Basin rail project.
The VFF has campaigned for decades for freight rail upgrades and we were pleased to see this commitment locked into yesterday’s budget papers.
There was also a commitment to encourage water infrastructure projects, including dams and pipelines, through a $2 billion Water Infrastructure Loan Facility.
Victoria has a long list of water infrastructure projects which will improve our state’s water security and boost agricultural opportunities.
And there’s an additional $7.1 million in funding for the Rural Financial Counselling service, which will extend services provided across the country for a further four years.
However, we were disappointed by the government’s failure to provide additional funding to rid rural areas of telecommunications issues or address the backpacker tax.
Last year, the VFF conducted a survey to gauge the importance of telecommunications to people in rural areas, and found that there was a reliance on technology for personal, business and educational needs.
The feedback we received clearly showed people in rural areas face grossly inadequate mobile and broadband access compared to their metropolitan counterparts. This wasn’t reflected in last night’s budget.
The government’s plan to tax working holiday makers as non-residents at 32.5 per cent also drew criticism because of the importance of backpackers to the Australian economy.
Each year we see around 40,000 backpackers come to Australia, many of whom work on our farms, and while they’re here they contribute about $3.5 billion to the Australian economy.
We can’t afford to lose that labour or that revenue and we need a realistic solution to tackle the problem. Both of these issues can be expected to become hot topics in the upcoming federal election.
- Peter Tuohey, VFF President
