NT industry groups want election fair go
NT Business Review has approached industry groups to see what they want out of the federal election. Read what they had to say:
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NT Business Review has approached industry groups to see what they want out of the federal election.
Read what they had to say:
Paul Burke, NT Farmers
The new federal government has an excellent opportunity to drive sustainable agricultural development in the north.
It is essential that the next government, commit to biosecurity preparedness, workforce certainty and precinct developments to foster growth in the sector.
Farmers in the north need federal government funding for biosecurity preparedness in the region over a 10 year period. In the north, we are Australia’s first line of defence against biosecurity, a long term funding commitment will help to safeguard Australian agriculture from pests and diseases.
A key priority for the next government must focus on achieving workforce certainty for farmers. It is essential that the next government fully commit to implementing an agricultural visa.
An ag-visa will deliver opportunities for international workers while providing a valuable source of labour to farmers.
NT Farmers is committed to working with any government to shape a fair and responsible ag visa for workers and farmers.
We would like to see an ag-visa that is not limited to just the pacific, it should allow any country to take part in the program.
Finally, we believe that the next government should commit to the development of north Australian agricultural precinct developments.
Strategically located precincts will drive investment and population growth in the region.
The government has an important role to play in harmonising the amount of fresh produce audits that are imposed on farmers.
Audits serve an important role in guaranteeing food safety and ethical business standards however, the expense and amount of paperwork required for each audit is exorbitant.
The government needs to streamline the audit system to guarantee standards while allowing farmers to get on with their job of farming.
NT Farmers have a positive working relationship with both major political parties.
We will work closely with whoever is in government to grow the industry.
Regardless of the political party in office, we will campaign strongly to secure a fair visa solution for farm workers and farmers.
Louise Bilato, Road Transport Association
The stand out figure in last week’s announcement of a 20 year high in CPI, was the nearly 15 per cent year on year rise in transport costs.
Our industry costs impact nearly every sector of the economy including cost of living for consumers.
Consequently, if the next Government wants to address cost of living and business problems, they need to address the transport issues.
Transport issues include:
WORKFORCE and skills crisis – that means spending real dollars to help find and train people for our industry;
FUEL Sovereignty including domestically produced alternative fuels;
ONGOING declines in productivity, particularly at Australian Ports (noting nearly every Australian port is ranked in the bottom quartile by the World Bank).
(Any new government must) immediately scrap the freeze on fuel excise rebate for the road transport industry.
There is growing national concern in the road transport industry that the freeze will lead to the collapse of a number of transport businesses in the next few months.
The loss of any transport business will further stress our already over stretched road transport industry.
At this stage, the only major party to have been in discussions with the Road Transport industry on policy development has been the ALP.
There has been no engagement by the other major parties with the Road Transport industry on key policy matters or issues.
Tim Burrow, Extractive Industries Association NT
The devil is in the double-ups. EIA-NT’s members are the sand, rock and gravel suppliers that make the foundation of all past, present, and future physical development here in the NT.
It’s a concrete fact that without our products, no physical development takes place – no houses, roads, footpaths, driveways, ship lifts, power stations and transmission lines, playing fields. Nothing.
After this election, we want less rules and regulations, not more, no more double dipping.
Three examples – we currently have are two sets of rules for biodiversity, two sets of rules for Indigenous land tenure, and two sets of rules for National and NT Parks.
Biodiversity has the Federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC) and the NT has its own NT threatened species list. Unfortunately, these are not synchronised, making gaining development approvals more difficult than they need to be.
Indigenous land tenure is managed twice too, Aboriginal land rights (Northern Territory) Act and Native Title Act. Only in the NT.
Parks also double up with NT Parks managing some of our great natural areas and National Parks managing others – confusing to say the least.
The NT is perhaps not the last frontier, but it is a frontier and yet it’s regulated like a mature region.
With the federal government funding about 80 per cent of all government spending in the NT, it seems crazy to have two lots of regulation for anything.
The sand, rock and gravel industry in the NT is primarily made up of long-term family businesses that love the NT.
We want to be a part of building it into an even greater place and we need the space to do it, not the double-dipping regulation we currently build around.
Frank Miller, Forestry Industry Association NT
The Forestry Industry Association of the NT (FIANT) has two major election priorities, the removal of the 600mm water rule and improved infrastructure to support forestry and agribusiness operations.
The water rule prevents forestry plantations that receive over 600mm of annual rainfall from selling carbon credits under the Emissions Reduction Fund.
The water rule is unfairly stunting the growth of the forestry industry in North Australia.
Scrapping the rule is critical to driving investment into new forestry plantations and operations in the Northern Territory.
Within 10 years, major Territory forestry plantations will begin harvesting logs.
Currently roads in the area are impassable during the wet and will not be able to support big volumes of traffic.
It is essential the next government starts planning and committing funding to upgrading roads.
In addition, telecommunication is a massive issue for plantations in the Territory.
Plantations struggle to do business in areas where there is no phone or data connectivity. Lack of connectivity stunts business opportunities and it is also a safety risk.
Plantations need real time data connectivity to monitor and respond to fires.
Furthermore, it is difficult to recruit workers to regional and remote areas that are not connected to the internet.
The 600mm water rule in the Carbon Farming Imitative must be scrapped.
The rule is severely limiting the growth of the industry in the Territory and the job opportunities for Territorians.
The rule prevents plantations that receive over 600mm of water from accessing and trading carbon credits.
Anthony Hill, AANT
The AANT has joined forces with Australia’s other motoring clubs to call on all political parties and candidates to green light a major infrastructure injection to Green light the Northern Territory’s Recovery.
The Territory’s part of the national plan includes a call for an injection of an extra $258m above the current spend creating 1200 new jobs and adding $750m in economic activity to the local economy.
This is a sensible, affordable plan to ensure the residents of Northern Territory get home safe and will benefit many other industry sectors such as Tourism, Transport & Agriculture.
A $198m commitment to upgrade the Stuart Highway from Darwin to Pine Creek with additional overtaking lanes, strengthening and widening of pavements, guardrail installations, signage and intersection works that achieve minimum AusRAP 3 star rating is the centrepiece of the AANT plan. AANT recently published the results of the NT Risky Roads survey whereby Territorians were asked to nominate a road, intersection or section of road that they considered to be problematic and a comprehensive list of these results have been sent to NTG, LGANT and Councils for response.
To help pay for this plan, the AANT is calling for the $13 billion raised per year in net fuel excise to be fully reinvested back into transport infrastructure.
In the past 10 years, only 53.7 per cent of fuel excise collected has been reinvested back into land transport expenditure.
Luis Espinoza, Housing Industry Association NT
Coming out of the pandemic, the upcoming federal election will need to vote for a government that’s willing to continue house building construction in the next few years to support the economy and maintain the Australian dream for first-home buyers owning their own homes.
In order to achieve this, HIA believes that the following is essential:
MAKE housing supply a national priority, by setting a pathway to increase house supply and reduce the cost of new housing;
UNLOCK land supply to support new housing through a long-term national commitment;
SUPPORT home ownership through expanding support for people wanting to own their own home;
INCREASE access to rental housing by growing and maintaining levels of renting properties in the market;
GROW the supply of social and community housing by facilitating ongoing investment for supply of social and community housing;
A POPULATION strategy to build our future and navigating the post-Covid future;
MAINTAIN a stable industry workforce by supporting and maintaining strong levels of training commencements and completions;
MAINTAIN the rights of independent contractors;
REDUCE the burden on new housing by reducing taxes and regulations on new housing.
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