Federal Labor’s new biosecurity levy has been singled out in a damning report by the Productivity Commission, prompting renewed calls for the unpopular tax on farmers to be scrapped.
The report released this week found Australia’s overly complex system of industry taxes and levies — which have grown from 26 in 1980 to 248 in 2023 — was hindering productivity growth.
If found inefficient taxes, levies and surcharges were in some cases not being used for their stated purpose — and that politicians appeared to be imposing new ones with little regard for the overall system.
GPA chair and Miling farmer Barry Large said the report raised serious concerns about creeping inefficacies with levies as a substitute for taxation.
“This new analysis has clearly belled the cat on the Government’s deeply flawed policy proposal and called it for what it really is — another tax on all Australian agricultural producers,” he said.
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