Pay an Outback bonus
The Prime Minister John Howard came and went last week. I was honoured to briefly meet him, but felt somewhat deflated by the whole experience.
Howard neither said nor did anything interesting. I didn’t expect him to triple somersault off a trampoline, but I did think he would make a significant announcement. That was not to be.
Howard and Alan Carpenter should both take a lesson from outgoing Victorian Premier Steve Bracks when it comes to publicity.
Bracks never visited a country town without making a major announcement or handing over money for a local project.
My tip was that Howard would announce solar city funding for Kalgoorlie-Boulder. Along with Alice Springs, we are the most logical place in Australia to run this program. So far we have been overlooked. There are not enough votes here, is my guess, and we are a safe seat.
The Prime Minister’s visit seemed to simply be a stopover on the way to Perth to raise funds for local MP Barry Haase and rally the troops. He didn’t shirk the issues of flow-through shares and zone tax rebates, but didn’t give any hope for either.
I stand to be shot down in flames here, but I fail to see the merit in flow-through shares. Their purpose is to encourage investment in exploration companies; those that are doing the hard work with no guarantee of return.
However, uranium explorers have no trouble attracting investment, even those operating in Western Australia where uranium can’t be mined!
Flow-through shares appear to be a mechanism to encourage speculation. Commodity prices and hyperbole are pretty good at that, without requiring government assistance.
I am strongly in favor of zone tax rebates though. Australia needs to decentralise and there should be incentives to encourage this.
The government has already set a precedent by giving cash to influence population through the baby bonus. It’s not a huge leap of logic to reward taxpayers who are prepared to live away from the coast.
Apart from persuading Peter Costello and Wayne Swan, the other difficulty is to define those areas that are eligible. It’s not my job to do that, but one suggestion might be to grant a rebate of $5000 per year to taxpayers who live more than 500km from a capital city and more than 300km from the coast.
That would rule out most of the growing regional cities in the eastern States and give a huge boost to places like Kalgoorlie-Boulder.
Imagine the impact that would have on fly-in fly-out. Five thousand dollars each for a husband and wife would be a big incentive for them to live in Kalgoorlie-Boulder, rather than Perth.
The baby bonus worked. Bring on the “outback bonus”.
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