Hello Carnarvon, a remote but vital town, powered by horticulture, fishing, and the regional pastoral industry, an industry I was very fortunate to grow up in.
The region’s irrigated farms along the Gascoyne River produce much of WA’s delicious bananas, mangoes and vegetables. Thank you to each of you who work hard and contribute so much.
For many years when my dad owned a series of small single-engined planes, we would overnight at Carnarvon, on our way to our stations.
Further away are the spectacular Ningaloo Reef, which I’ve swum out to, nearby Shark Bay and Dirk Hartog Island, which was once owned by my mother’s family, the Nicholas’, who loved their many years there.
The area today draws close to 200,000 overnight visitors each year, including visits by my mother, my husband and me. I have very, very happy memories.
And, in the other direction, lies Learmonth and Exmouth, which I’ve enjoyed visiting too, even chartered a 747 Qantas jet for my dad’s 70th birthday, the “wake up Australia flight”, to land at Learmonth with its hundreds of passengers overnighting in sleeping bags there.
And I’ve been a guest of Michael Kailis who pioneered commercial fishing in the area – the produce is fantastic! Thankfully, the area hosts American facilities which are vital to our defence needs.
These businesses provide jobs, directly and indirectly, and contribute to our food security. A third of Australia’s workforce is now in a tax-paid role, imposing, from far away cities, legislation, regulations, and compliance at increasing cost to struggling businesses, but at no cost to themselves. Some of these bureaucrats are on salaries that well exceed those of our elected Prime Minister.
They have increased our record public debt to 35 per cent of GDP, with escalating interest, meaning high taxes for this generation, and our families following.
We already have the highest taxes in Australia’s history that cripple small business and put a wrecking ball through our international cost competitiveness and personal savings and drive up our cost of living.
Yet while government wastage goes on as if uncontrolled, instead of controlling this expenditure, they strive to implement more harmful taxes to pay in part.
We should never forget, no government has ever taxed a country into prosperity.
Grand government promises about cheap renewable power have cost our country, agriculture and businesses dearly, and cheap power has not eventuated. Rising electricity prices driven by blinkered ideology put further strain on the good people in this region, as nearly everything requires electricity.
If agriculture and other primary industries and the businesses they support are to thrive, low-cost reliable electricity is fundamental.
Around the country small businesses consistently identify rising energy costs as a top risk to viability. No wonder more than 1000 Australian small businesses – our nation’s leading private employer – close every day. And medium businesses struggle and close too, while bureaucrats in their airconditioned, far-away offices, enjoy seven-figure salaries.
Regional businesses suffocate under government tape duplication that bring investment to a standstill. This has to change.
If our north is to find its way out of the cost of living crisis, lower standard of living crisis and the misery these have caused, we don’t need more bureaucrats. We need a special economic zone, stretching across northern Australia’s 26th parallel.
In this zone, there should be no personal income tax, be this no tax directly or via full tax rebate. And in this zone, none of the state taxes that were to be abolished more than 20 years ago, such as payroll tax, license fees and stamp tax, which our state should be able to afford, given the massive contribution of the mining industry.
With a northern special economic zone, Carnarvon and its pastoral regions could become a beacon of regional prosperity.
To achieve such change, is up to each of us, or, it won’t happen.
