‘Like making Origin players pay for security’: Plan to tax our farmers to help food importers slammed

Proposed changes to a proposed “biosecurity levy” may not go enough to satisfy farmers who say they should not be paying to help foreign competitors get onto Australian supermarket shelves.

The government has been forced to back down on a controversial scheme to make local farmers pay to screen foreign food imports for biosecurity threats which had been slammed by farmers as like making “State of Origin players pay for security at the gate.”

However proposed changes to a proposed “biosecurity levy” may not go far enough to satisfy farmers who say they should not be paying to help foreign competitors get onto Australian supermarket shelves.

The controversial scheme, which was announced in last year’s federal budget without consultation, has the potential to add as much $150 million to the existing levies farmers already pay the government for biosecurity screening.

Grain industry figures said that if the levy had been imposed two years ago before a pair of strong harvests, wheat and canola growers alone might have been on the hook for as much as $50 million.

“Our view is that we spend enough on levies already and that the government should spend what they have better,” said Colin Bettles, CEO of Grain Producers Australia.

“We already pay 1.02 per cent of our bottom line in compulsory levies that go to research and development and biosecurity and global market access.”

Chinchilla farmer Terry O'Leary inspecting his crop of watermelons. Picture: Matthew Newton

“It’s ridiculous for the government to call us the only beneficiaries of biosecurity, it’s fundamentally flawed logic … enough is enough,” he said.

After industry backlash, including a letter to the prime minister signed by 50 of the country’s largest agricultural bodies including Cattle Australia, Sheep Producers Australia, Australian Grape and Wine, and Grain Producers Australia, on Tuesday Agriculture Minister Murray Watt said the way the levy was charged would be changed.

Leader of the National Party David Littleproud during Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Watt said: “Rates will not … be set by reference to 2020-21 agricultural levy rates, as was originally proposed.

“In addition, imposition of the levy will be tailored to individual products and goods to reduce multiple imposition points across a product’s supply chain.”

However growers were waiting to see the details, with Grain Producers Australia saying they “welcomed the changes” but that they needed to see the details to ensure the “significant, fundamental flaws” in the levy were addressed.

Nationals leader David Littleproud said, “what’s confirmed is that farmers will still be made to contribute” to biosecurity.

“Farmers should not pay a cent for foreign competitors to bring their products in and compete against them,” he said.

Terry O’Leary, who raises wheat and watermelons in the Queensland town of Chinchilla, called any form of additional levy “disgusting.”

“I think it’s disgusting the way they are treating us as a cash cow,” Mr O’Leary said.

“You wouldn’t go to the State of Origin and expect players to pay for security at the front gate out of their own back pocket, so why should farmers?”

“When you look at horticulture, 32 per cent of the industry is considering leaving. It is ridiculous Labor is putting a tax on an industry that is shrinking and this will affect our food security.”

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