{"id":204,"date":"2010-08-31T20:51:37","date_gmt":"2010-08-31T10:51:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/?p=204"},"modified":"2013-11-13T09:29:59","modified_gmt":"2013-11-12T23:29:59","slug":"remote-area-zone-tax-rebate-nows-our-chance-to-fix-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/remote-area-zone-tax-rebate-nows-our-chance-to-fix-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Remote Area Zone Tax Rebate – Now’s our chance to fix it"},"content":{"rendered":"

It has been surprising that the Remote Area\u00a0Tax Rebate<\/strong> (most recently referred to as the ‘Zone Tax Offset’<\/strong>) doesn’t appear to have been mentioned in\u00a0the independent’s\u00a0discussion list – in particular Bob Katter’s list.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0single best achievement these rural independents could make would be\u00a0raising the Remote Area Zone Tax Rebate\/Zone Tax Offset\u00a0up from the\u00a0rates which don’t appear to have changed much since the original introduction in 1945.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Encouraging population decentralisation in this most economically efficient manner (a tax rebate is infinitely better than upfront subsidies) would have a multitude of benefits.<\/strong>\u00a0 Eg helping the\u00a0environment<\/strong> by limiting the over-use pressure on open spaces (rivers, beaches, parks, bushland etc) in and around our largest cities.\u00a0 And pegging back the brick & tile\u00a0sprawl into bushland would help preserve native plants and animals in what are often our most biodiverse regions, as well as protecting increasingly scarce (and increasingly valuable) food producing land (thus reducing\u00a0pollution caused by excessive haulage and maintaining use of our most efficient food growing land – i.e. reducing the need for inputs such as fertiliser and irrigation).\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A Remote Area Zone Tax Rebate at a level that genuinely reflects the much higher cost of living, working and raising a family in the bush\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>would assist small remote regional business owners directly and indirectly via their employees.\u00a0 And it would restore at least some social equality and dignity to the most remote regional residents upon whose food growing and export-income efforts the rest of us are entirely dependent.\u00a0 Prosperous regional economies help ensure prosperous cities.<\/strong>\u00a0 Apart from a tiny number of locally residing miners, the majority of rural residents have much lower incomes than coastal residents, poorer health statistics and much higher living expenses.\u00a0\u00a0A healthy tax rebate for genuinely permanent remote residency<\/span>\u00a0would also encourage the cessation of the extremely\u00a0socially destructive fly-in fly-out mining practices.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A simple example of the higher cost of living in remote areas is petrol.\u00a0<\/strong> In the remotest parts of Australia – where there is of course no government (i.e. taxpayer)\u00a0subsidised public transport –\u00a0unleaded petrol is now around $2.00 per litre.\u00a0\u00a0 This is about $1.82 plus 18c GST<\/strong> per litre.\u00a0 Compare this to today’s list of cheap petrol prices in Melbourne, which averages $1.13 per litre.\u00a0 This is $1.03 plus 10% GST of just 10c per litre.\u00a0 Given that the resident paying an extra 8c GST per litre is likely to have to drive a round trip of 700km or more to get to their closest\u00a0bank, post office, food retailer or doctor, and the resident with easy access to cheaper fuel is likely to only have to do a max. of 10km or less to get to and from these essential services (and with the option of cheap, subsidised public transport as well), it’s very obvious that the person living in a remote area is coughing up a massive amount more in Goods and Services Tax than someone living in a city, for comparable purchases.<\/strong>\u00a0 Higher prices for goods in remote areas are inevitable due to freight costs, the\u00a0lack of economies of scale\/bulk buying purchase discounts for smaller turnover retailers, and the higher living costs also borne by the remote area business owners.<\/span><\/p>\n

I’ve\u00a0been asked ‘why should people in cities subsidise people living in the bush?’<\/strong>\u00a0 When I have recovered from the shock of such a display of ignorance,\u00a0I’ve explained that what they perceive as ‘subsidisation’ is in reality ‘equitable taxation’<\/strong> and set about providing a rough & ready but nonetheless effective summary of the history of ‘civilisation’:<\/span><\/p>\n

– in cave man times, it was every man (and woman) for themselves.\u00a0 Their daily lives were spent gathering and catching enough food to eat for that day.\u00a0 In most parts of Australia, this is how aboriginal people lived prior to the arrival of Europeans.\u00a0 In better seasons and in better areas there was some lie-around-and-relax time, but much of the time – there was minimal time for relaxation.\u00a0 Bush tucker gathering is constant yakka, in most areas natural food supplies are insufficient to allow for all-year-round permanent settlement, and it’s perilous.\u00a0 People living a subsistence life are constantly at risk of starvation due to\u00a0a poor season (too much or too little rain or temperatures that are too hot or cold), a locust plague or a bushfire.<\/span><\/p>\n

– In countries where plant species were well suited to being grown as monocultures and soil and climate made it do-able,\u00a0some people started farming and producing more food than they could eat themselves.\u00a0 They started trading their excess with people who weren’t so keen on food producing, who started up businesses producing something else instead (eg clothing or furniture) or providing a services (eg mud hut building).\u00a0 The two major aspects of modern society were born –\u00a0trading & towns.<\/span><\/p>\n

– As food production, transport\u00a0and storage systems (eg refrigeration)\u00a0advanced and became more sophisticated, more and more people were able to spend their lives working in occupations other than food production.\u00a0 Tiny villages turned into towns and then into cities and some of these turned into huge metropolises, with housing, goods and services arranged in a certain manner according to frequency of use\/public demand\u00a0etc.\u00a0 (This is basic urban planning principles recalled from year 11 geography, thanks Mrs de Vries.)<\/span><\/p>\n

– But one thing hasn’t changed.\u00a0 Everyone needs food.\u00a0 No farmers\u00a0= no cities.\u00a0 Most urban residents don’t have nearly enough land to produce enough food for themselves to eat all year round – even if they did have the necessary knowledge and enthusiasm to do so.<\/span><\/p>\n

– We’re on an island.\u00a0 Yes it’s a big one, but it’s still an island.\u00a0 Ask a Briton who lived through the food shortages of WWII what they think of relinquishing all local food production in favour of 100% imports.\u00a0 Ask the average Aussie if they’re prefer to eat food grown & handled under our own food production standards, or that of a third world country where survival is at a premium and food safety standards are secondary.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

– Australia no longer rides on the sheep’s back but agriculture does still account for a large amount of export income.\u00a0 This\u00a0purchases everything from TVs to dishwashers, affordable clothes and cars.\u00a0 All produced in other countries.\u00a0 No export income = no imports.<\/span><\/p>\n

– It’s more efficient to have the Australia population spread around in regions rather than concentrated in just a handful of massive cities.<\/strong>\u00a0 It seems to me\u00a0Australian cities reach peak economies of scale with regard to\u00a0provision of\u00a0services (eg specialist medical services, base hospitals and universities, which need a large population to be justifiable and sustainable)\u00a0and social\/living standard levels somewhere around 150,000 people (depending on the catchment area, etc).\u00a0 \u00a0Larger than that, and the problems associated with big cities start to\u00a0proliferate (pollution, urban sprawl, traffic problems, crime, vandalism\u00a0and other anti-social behaviour associated with perceived anonymity etc).\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0 For smaller towns, around 10-15,000 is a good number – big enough to support at least a couple of\u00a0supermarkets, a range of banks, car dealers and mechanics, doctors, a hospital and other\u00a0government services.<\/span><\/p>\n

– Decentralisation\u00a0also helps maintain a much more diverse and interesting national identity, and reducing the number of large areas with no permanent residents gives us a more flexible security<\/strong> blanket should climatic changes<\/strong> (short or long term) make residing in any particular area more difficult.\u00a0 And a well populated north has quarantine\/biosecurity benefits<\/strong>; helping to keep Australia free of smugglers (from native animals and birds, to drugs and illegal immigrants) – thus helping to keep out serious foreign pests and diseases that would decimate our native animals and plants; domestic animals and our economy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0– And there is of course the issue of social justice.\u00a0<\/strong> Apart from a relatively small amount of tax refunded to tax payers in remote areas, they pay income tax at the same rate as anyone else.\u00a0 And because goods and services are much more costly, they actually pay a lot more GST to obtain the same amount of goods and services, compared to residents in capital cities (where it’s also very easy to save large amounts of money by consistently shopping for convenient bargains).\u00a0 Yet remote area residents do not have ready access to all the government provided services paid for by their taxes and so taken for granted in cities – from public transport to libraries, galleries, festivals, local schools and hospitals, good quality all-weather roads, local ABC radio and television news services, etc.\u00a0 In fact there’s a large slab of inland Australia that can’t even receive any ABC radio services, except on their TV or computer (of no use when you’re not in your office or loungeroom, and worse than useless when you’re spending a few hours in the car on the way to the nearest town).<\/span><\/p>\n

These days the most socially disadvantaged aren\u2019t living in cities<\/strong>, they\u2019re in the bush, producing our food and export income.\u00a0 Raising the Remote Area Zone Tax Rebate to a level equivalent with the rate paid when it was first introduced in 1945, would also send a message to remote Australians to let them know they were respected and valued.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Of course\u00a0fly-in fly-out miners<\/strong> should be ineligible for any remote area tax rebate\/zone tax offset.\u00a0 Because\u00a0fly-in fly-out shiftworkers\u00a0are not genuinely permanent rural residents only visitors; they purchase little or no goods and services locally,\u00a0have very good travel and living conditions provided for by their employers, and their home base is almost always a home of a quality way above the average residence in large cities on or near the coast.\u00a0 In other words, they have absolutely none of the financial disadvantages faced by genuine remote area residents (and are in fact better off financially than the average city resident).\u00a0 At present miners only have to spend 182 days over 2 years in a remote area to be eligible for the Zone Tax Offset – clearly a ridiculous situation.<\/span><\/p>\n

The October 2008 A.R. Fullarton submission to the Australia’s Future Tax System Review is<\/strong> an excellent summary of the issues concerning the Remote Area Zone Tax Rebate system.\u00a0 For example the writer quite rightly points out that residents of large cities such as Darwin and Townsville should\u00a0no longer be\u00a0eligible for any Remote Area\u00a0Zone Tax Rebate, nor should fly-in fly-out miners;\u00a0and that these savings (from a lot of people claiming small amounts) could be\u00a0spent on raising the taxation rebate\u00a0for genuine remote residents (a much higher amount going to a small number of people).\u00a0<\/strong> This\u00a0Tax Review submission can be accessed on this page<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Remote Area Tax Rebate, or ‘Zone Tax Offset’ as it has been called most recently, needs raising so that it accurately reflects the true cost of living and working in remote areas of Australia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,15,234],"tags":[82,128,235],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":384,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions\/384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}