QUEENSLAND’s peak horticulture body Growcom has called on the crossbenchers, Labor and the Greens to pass the 15 per cent backpacker tax rate or be complicit in condemning industry to a 32.5pc tax.
Growcom chief advocate Rachel Mackenzie said by refusing to support the 15pc tax agreed to by industry, they were tacitly endorsing the Coalition’s dodgy budget measure of 32.5pc.
Ms Mackenzie said farmers across Queensland would not forget today’s performance by politicians and their apparent inability to come to a compromise in the parliament for the benefit of the horticultural industry.
“Without a compromise today, these politicians are just putting in a 32.5pc tax regime for working holiday makers on 1 January. The industry will not forget,” Ms Mackenzie said.
“Today will live in infamy if politicians can't agree to a compromise position on the backpacker tax rate in the next few hours.
“It is a disgrace that in these last available hours of deliberation in the Parliament for the year, politicians are quibbling about a few percentage points either way when the horticultural industry has accepted 15pc and while the spectre of 32.5pc looms over the horticultural industry from 1 January.
“We call on all politicians to bring about the compromise the industry expects – now!”
