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

It is a pity I have not heard the commentary, because I am quite sure that the senators opposite would be agreeing 100 per cent with everything I have said, including my praise of the best Treasurer Australia has ever seen. But, in the area of zone tax, I do think that further investigation is needed.

There are parts of my state of Queensland and other parts of Australia where a zone tax rebate is needed because the conditions in those areas, the isolation and the extremely high cost of living do deserve and need, in my view, assistance from the government. I think it is essential that today we revisit the 1945 zone tax rebate scheme and reimplement the principles that were so prominent there in legislation. In 1945, when that scheme was first introduced, the basic wage was about $7.38 per week, in today’s monetary system. The zone allowance in those days was $80 a year in current currency. So that is about 10 times the average weekly wage. Today the average weekly wage is about $700 a week, but the zone allowance for the year in remote areas is $338 per year, about half the average wage. If the relativity were maintained today, as it was originally, at 10 times the average wage the rebate would be something like $7,000 per year instead of $338 per year.

There is the huge and critical difficulty that country people have in getting access to health professionals, indeed professionals of all types—not only professionals but tradespeople as well. There is an extra cost; there is an inconvenience of living in some of the remote parts. For example, you cannot slip down to the next suburb to go to a concert; you cannot slip down the road and see a major sporting event. You certainly cannot go down to the end of your street and see a doctor. If you want to access a lawyer in some of these remote places, you have to travel for a minimum of six, seven or eight hours.

There are inconveniences and high costs of living in parts of country Australia and they do engender and promote two different classes of Australians: those who live in the capital cities and have all of the resources and lifestyle attributes there, and those who live in the more remote parts who can barely get access to the most necessary support—that is, in the health area. It is worst in Queensland because the current government is very much a south-east Queensland government. They look after the south-east and all of their focus is on it. They built a footbridge across the Brisbane River so that the good citizens of Brisbane—which is part of my electorate, I might add—could have a nice walk across the river. That bridge cost an enormous amount of money, whereas hospitals up in the north-west—even hospitals in Townsville, which is a major provincial city—are suffering for lack of money. Yet the current Labor government just spends money on the high-profile, feelgood things like the new sporting stadium in Queensland that gave Mr Beattie the opportunity of, yet again, smiling and grinning and telling everyone how good he is and how he looks after them. He is only interested in that area of the state because, of course, that is where all the voters are. He does not worry about those of us in the north or the west—out of sight, out of mind. Even if they all vote against him, it is not going to make any difference to the huge majority he has in parliament.

But I digress. I want to return to the issue of the zone tax rebate. I was told in my discussions with the Treasurer that there are suggestions that having a different rate of tax for different Australians could be unconstitutional. That may be the technical legal view from some of the QCs or very learned legal people in the Attorney-General’s office, but it is not one that I would suggest, from my very limited understanding of law, would hold water. One very strong reason I have for saying that is that it has been in place now for more than 60 years and no-one has challenged it yet, so I do not think suggesting that we should not look at it on the basis that it might be seen to be unconstitutional is a relevant response.

There should be ways that we can assist those who live in the more remote areas and this zone tax rebate scheme, when it was first introduced, was a great way of doing that. It has been sort of added to over the years, but it has not kept pace with inflation and now does not have anywhere near the impact that it had when it was first introduced and that it was intended to have. I suggest, tongue-in-cheek, that this bill could perhaps be added to by removing all reference to the zone tax rebate scheme because, quite frankly, it is now hardly worth the paper it is written on. But, rather than remove it, I would suggest that the Treasury should be looking at some way to bring it back to the principles that were so very obvious when it was first introduced and are so very obvious now. Any legislation that starts or continues the process of attempting simplification is one that we should support and I certainly commend the bill to the Senate.

Question negatived.

Original question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.