LAST year our Prime Minister, with senior politicians and leaders of industry, visited overseas countries including Japan and Korea to establish free trade agreements.
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These were important people on an important mission that achieved significant trade benefits for Australia as these agreements will eliminate barriers to trade and establish a level playing field for companies competing for trade.
Locally, the Indigo mayor has identified his support for a program to initiate a senate inquiry into the red meat industry, to establish a responsible financial structure for the industry which will achieve acceptable financial returns for our farmers.
But with all these efforts to break down barriers and achieve effective cost structures in our agricultural industry, there is a significant barrier right on our doorstep in the form of inequitable municipal rates imposed by our rural councils on farming enterprises.
The Municipal Association of Victoria has established a rating system which seeks to impose rates based on the value of the assets owned by a ratepayer and uses the Capital Improved Value (CIV) of property as the measure of a ratepayer’s assets.
This inequitable system fails to acknowledge that ratepayers can acquire and hold assets in many forms. If we look at a retired banker living in a town, who has a residential property valued at $400,000 and holds income producing shares and bank deposits worth $1.6 million on which he must pay tax, and compare him with a farmer who has a house valued at $400,000 and farming land valued at $1.6 million, which he uses to generate income on which he must pay tax.
Both are treated equally until their rate notices arrive with the retired banker required to pay $1420 for the CIV of his house and surrounds, whereas the farmer is required to pay $5327 for the combined CIV of his house and surrounds PLUS his income producing assets. The farmer is taxed twice!
This is an issue that must be addressed and corrected by our rural shire councils; the significant reduction in contribution from our manufacturing and resources sectors will now require agriculture to increase its contribution to our national income and in doing so provide increased employment opportunities for the growing number of unemployed young people.
— ROBIN McLIESH,
Wooragee