Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Hansard source

In the electorate of Mayo—from the base of the Barossa in Eden Valley, through the Adelaide Hills and across to the Lower Lakes, down the Fleurieu Peninsula to Kangaroo Island—we are fortunate to have the best pears, cherries, apples, strawberries, grapes, beef cattle, lamb, dairy and honey. We grow it all. And farmers across the electorate of Mayo rely heavily on backpackers to help get our amazing fresh produce to domestic and export markets.

In 2015, the federal government announced it was going to increase the tax on all money earned by backpackers to 32.5 per cent, as this House well knows. One can only wonder what the Nationals were doing when this decision was made. And I had always thought that the National Party's core constituency were farmers and the rural landscape. So I was incredibly disappointed, as a person who represents a very large and diverse rural community, that this was on the table.

This backpacker tax is not only very bad for farmers; it is also very bad for the Australian economy and for the coffers of the Australian Taxation Office. Backpackers spend almost all of the money that they earn in a region within that region. They help not only the farmers but also the broader community and economy when they spend their tourist dollar in shops, hotels and caravan parks across the country. And when the backpacker tax in Australia gets too high, the backpackers simply go elsewhere—and we have seen that this season.

The government has since backtracked on the backpacker tax, and their current plan is to reduce it from 32.5 per cent to 19 per cent. However, this is still significantly higher than the 11.95 per cent in New Zealand for earnings up to $14,000. I feel that, for this season, it is too little too late.

Thousands of backpackers have already changed their summer holiday plans and are now going to places such as Canada and New Zealand. The lack of policy vision and consistency is going to play absolute havoc with the fruit and vegetable harvests this year in my community. Farmers in my electorate and beyond are going to struggle to find enough hands to pick the fruit. All of this is because of this tax.

We have high youth unemployment in Australia. In some parts of South Australia, including within some parts of my electorate, it is as high 17 per cent. Youth employment never properly recovered after the global financial crisis. So many traditional jobs, like manufacturing in urban and regional centres, simply do not exist in significant numbers anymore.

High quality agricultural products are one of Australia's major international advantages. Population growth is projected to be almost 10 billion by 2050. As the middle classes of our nearest neighbours in Asia become more affluent and their demand for high-quality produce even greater, we have the potential to be the high-quality food bowl of the world. This a huge opportunity for Australia and our country's prosperity—if only we invest in agriculture to grow the sector and adopt the most creative and innovative techniques and technology.

Yet agriculture in Australia is being held back, and this tax is just one example. Increasingly, farmers are struggling to get the temporary or permanent employees to work the farms and bring in the harvest. And the farming workforce is getting older and older. In 2011 the median age of farmers was 53 years, compared with 40 for other occupations. I have all the respect in the world for our farmers. Just yesterday I was milking by hand at the Meadows Country Fair—in the rain, on a Sunday afternoon. It was a competition but it was incredibly hard work.

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