Government ignores advice against 'farmer tax'

NSW Farmers is urging federal MPs to reject the Government’s plan to impose a ‘double tax’ on Australia’s food and fibre producers.

The controversial Biosecurity Protection Levy would impose additional costs on the very farmers who already paid significant levies for biosecurity efforts, and bore the cost of dealing with previous biosecurity failures such as Varroa mite and Red Imported Fire Ant.

Despite overwhelming evidence the poorly thought out policy would not practically improve biosecurity protections, the Federal Government was seemingly pushing ahead with its agenda, NSW Farmers Biosecurity Committee chair Ian McColl said.

“Our message has been very clear – we oppose the biosecurity levy bill in its current form, and we do not believe this tax should be imposed on farmers,” Mr McColl said. 

“As we’ve said time and time again, farmers already pay far more than their fair share to fund the nation’s biosecurity system, and they are also incurring huge costs to protect their businesses against biosecurity threats.

“Meanwhile, there is no container levy imposed on importers, despite the threats to our national biosecurity coming from overseas.”

Australia’s farmers were joined by the Productivity Commission, the Australian National University, the Office of Impact Analysis and even importers in opposing the legislation.

Date: Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Media Contact: Eliza Fessey | 0427 411 220 | [email protected]