TAFE students and businesses in the North East will be the big winners in the 2018-19 Victorian state budget.
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At a cost of $172 million, 30 priority TAFE courses will be provided for free including automotive, plumbing, engineering, agriculture and mental health certificates from January 1, 2019.
Changes will also come into effect next year reducing the pay roll tax rate to 2.425 per cent for regional businesses who pay at least 85 per cent of their payroll to regional employees.
In his address to the media following the budget’s release, Treasurer Tim Pallas placed significance on the cut.
"It will be the lowest in the nation and for regional employers this will mean a 50 per cent reduction in the pay roll tax across two budgets,” he said.
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"This will mean in the four years of budgeting of this government, we've delivered tax cuts for business totalling $740 million."
Mr Pallas also described the “road maintenance blitz” as the biggest ever seen in Victoria, and Northern Victoria MLC Jaclyn Symes said there was $56.6 million in it for the North East.
“That’s in addition to a $100 million fund available to country councils, for them to put up their projects on a merit basis – that’s something councils have been raising with me, finding it difficult to keep up with managing their own road network repairs,” she said.
In terms of specific road projects, Kiewa Valley Highway upgrades between Wodonga and Mount Beauty including lane widening and intersection upgrades will be completed in 2020 with the total investment to be $7.6 million.
An additional $8.6 million will be spent on the Murray Valley Highway in the next year, and $2.4 million on the Rutherglen alternative truck route, with both projects estimated to be completed in the last quarter of the 2019-20 financial year.
Regional Roads Victoria will be established within VicRoads to better plan, maintain and advocate for the regional road network, with $17.4 million to be spent setting it up.
Existing staff at regional VicRoads offices such as those in Wodonga will report to the Chief Regional Roads Officer, at the Regional Roads division, based at Ballarat.
For schools, there was no news additional to the projects announced in April but budget papers showed Harrietville Primary School will receive $247,000 in the 2018-19 year, Rutherglen High School $630,000 and Benalla College $2.7 million as part of existing projects.
In rail, there is no immediate relief for the North East's train pain in immediate sight with planning for new trains still underway.
Planning money for major projects across other areas of development in the region have also been granted.
The Murray River Adventure Trail will receive $500,000 to develop a business case to create a multi-sport adventure trail that extends along the length of the Murray River.
The Wangaratta Digital Hub and Wodonga business innovation cluster projects will each receive $300,000 for business cases to be developed, with the digital hub involving GOTAFE, Galen College and La Trobe University to establish state-of-the-art IT facilities for education.
Other budget initiatives include:
- A further $22.2 million will be spent on extra regional bus services and infrastructure
- The Victorian Cross Border Commission will be established with $760,000
- $1.3 million for the Good Neighbour Program and Alpine Horse Strategy
- $60 million for the Community Sports Infrastructure Fund
- $8 million for Victoria’s contribution to the Murray-Darling Basin Authority
- This budget will double the stamp duty-free threshold for young farmers from 300 to 600, meaning farmers aged under 35 and buying their first farm property will receive a full stamp duty exemption on purchases up to $600,000, bringing it into line with the first home buyers exemption threshold