Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, and the same in the north of Western Australia. Air conditioning is not a luxury up there; it is essential. You would put a bullbar on because the chances are that in any year you would knock over a couple of kangaroos and if you are unlucky you would probably hit a beast as well. If you are travelling at night you do need to have decent spotlights. You might have a Shoo Roo, although mine never seemed to work. It all adds to the cost. There might be a manager on one of these properties. He might not be the primary producer strictly speaking. Perhaps the manager of a property does use the primary producer’s basic four-wheel drive but perhaps his contract does not allow his wife to have a primary production four-wheel drive to take the kids into school. The manager has his own personal four-wheel drive. They will have to pay the luxury tax. It is not something that anyone in Canberra would appreciate or understand. In Canberra you go down to the end of the street and there is a school there. You go half a suburb away and you have a shopping centre. That does not happen in the bush.

So I am curious. Perhaps I have your amendment wrong, Senator Fielding. Perhaps it is more than one vehicle. That is a concern to me. Senator Abetz, quite rightly, said, ‘Sure, I’m glad we are looking after the primary producers for one vehicle a year,’ if I understand the amendment correctly, but what about all those people Senator Abetz mentioned? I will not dwell on them but simply run through them. It could be the mechanic, the contract harvester, the contract fencer, the vet or the mailman. It could be any of these people who live in places all over Australia. I have just come back from the north-west. Let me name them: there is Einasleigh, Forsayth, Georgetown, Normanton, Croydon, Karumba, Burketown, Richmond, Hughenden and Julia Creek. That is just a few up in the north-west. They are little communities where there are people who are not primary producers but for whom a four-wheel drive with bullbars, air conditioning, spotlights, et cetera, which take them into the luxury car tax category, are essential. Why are they not getting the same break that primary producers are getting?

I am glad we are doing it for primary producers, although one a year is not realistic, but why not for other people? There may be an explanation, Senator Fielding. I will sit down and hear the explanation. If I have this wrong I will speak again to apologise. But I really would like to know why we are looking after certain people and not others.

Let me just also indicate that I am slightly confused about where the luxury tax goes. If you buy a Toyota LandCruiser or a Nissan Patrol in Melbourne, you would get it straight off the ship. If you buy it in Mount Isa or Mareeba or places in remote Australia—and I am using Queensland as an example because I come from there—and I am sure it is the same up in the north-west of Western Australia, in the Kimberley, or you buy it in Alice Springs, it is more expensive, for all the right reasons. It is just another impost on country people, people who do not have an alternative. There are no trains, there are no taxis, there are no buses or carriers that can pick up your groceries and deliver them home. I am just concerned about that.

I know that Senator Fielding has a real interest in families generally and certainly families in remote and regional Australia who really do it hard. I do not think any of them would change their position—they are there for a reason. Quite frankly, rural and particularly remote families do it tough and this legislation will impact on them. I know that Senator Fielding has done a deal with the government to try to address this issue and I appreciate that he has done that, but I do not think that he has addressed it properly. I may be wrong, so please, Senator Fielding, explain it to me.