Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce has called for the implementation of a zonal taxation scheme as an issue of immediate national importance.
“It has become apparent, and in clear focus lately to the 3 million people who live in the Murray-Darling Basin and the people they feed, the South East corner of Australia, that a decisive plan is required to develop an alternative source of production and to relieve the ever increasing pressure on the water infrastructure assets of the South East Qld, Sydney and Melbourne.
“If we are truly considering a constructive solution we must consider the proposition of enticing people to move to where the water is. The only reason someone will move from where the health services are, to where they are not; from where the good roads are, to where they are not; from where the public utilities are in abundance, to where they are scarce; is if you give them a back pocket reason to compensate them for the move.
“Zonal taxation is the capping of tax rates in the area you want to entice the people to go to. The person who works and lives in the area is taxed at, say, a maximum rate of 10 cents in the dollar. With this proposition the person who has moved to Queensland has the motivation to keep driving past the South East corner of Queensland and onto the gulf, where there will be two major effects of his or her move.
“Firstly, they will not exacerbate the current pressures on the water resources of South East Queensland.
“Secondly, they will be in an area under populated. But, with the appropriate labour, they will start providing the food to feed those who remain behind in South East Queensland, Sydney and Melbourne.
“This is a process that has been used by so many nations in the past such as Brazil, USA, France, England and Republic of Ireland. When zonal taxation is applied to an area that is geographically distinct from the part of the country taxed at the regular rate, it can have an immense beneficial effect.
“No matter how much money we spend, we cannot create new water in the Murray-Darling Basin which is the food basket that feeds South East Queensland, Sydney and Melbourne. As a nation, if we become reliant on the importation of food, we are fundamentally exposed in a manner we have never been exposed before, that we, as a nation, cannot feed ourselves. I think every Australian fears that vulnerability. We must have a decisive plan for the development of an alternate domestic form of food production away from the Murray-Darling Basin.
“This current drought really means our mining exports are carrying the weight of a nation. If there was to be a down turn in this commodity price, a fall in the value of the dollar, then the responding hyper inflation in the price of imported food would affect every Australian family and would be devastating.
“The zonal taxation plan must be taken seriously now.” Senator Joyce said.