Mr PERRETT (Gympie—LNP) (3.09 pm): I rise to speak on the COVID-19 Emergency Response
and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021. COVID-19 has been with us now for more than a year. In the last year, we have seen many legislative and regulatory changes which have impacted many businesses, industries and communities. This bill seeks to extend mechanisms and arrangements made in two COVID-19 emergency bills last year. Most of those measures, which were due to expire at the end of December, were subsequently extended to the end of this month, 30 April. This bill seeks a further extension for another five months until the end of September.
The bill will also insert temporary arrangements regarding local government administration and elections. What I want to focus my attention on is changes to enable local governments to adjust rates and charges for the next financial year—for 2021-22. Last year’s COVID-19 bills were unprecedented and extraordinary legislative provisions to facilitate our state’s response to a broad range of circumstances that were disrupted by the emergency. They allowed local governments to make extraordinary decisions for the 2020-21 financial year, including re-levying rates and charges for the remainder of the financial year. According to the explanatory notes, the bill seeks to ‘continue to support the financial sustainability of local governments … by allowing local governments to decide, by resolution at a meeting other than a budget meeting, what rates and charges are to be levied for the 2021-22 financial year’. This includes providing for decisions to be revisited later during the year.
The Queensland economy is struggling. Our rural and regional areas are struggling. It is well known that the government is relying on the financial input and economic generation from our farmers and agricultural sector and the resources sector to help prop it up. They are integral to the economic recovery of the state. They require certainty to remain competitive and globally competitive. The Queensland Farmers’ Federation, AgForce and the Queensland Resources Council have raised concerns about the decisions local governments are making on rating practices and their impact on the sectors they represent, and they have sought greater transparency in how these rates are applied and designed.
Under Queensland law, there is no statutory constraint on the power of Queensland’s 77 local councils to determine rate charges. Local government is granted a discretionary power to levy special rates and charges, and there is limited transparency of local government budgets. The chief executive officer of the QFF, Dr Georgina Davis, told the committee that the current framework provides ‘unfettered powers to pursue inequitable and unpredictable rating practices. They are under no obligation to justify those changes.’ She also said that the lack of constraints to determine charges has resulted in ‘differing practices and strategies for setting rates with very little consistency’.
The joint submission said that the system is unsustainable and has given local government ‘the ability to effectively plug budget gaps through raising rating revenue on select industries without clear justification’. It goes on—
Justifying increases in rates mid-year as a means of ensuring the financial sustainability of a local government risks being at the expense of the viability of the resources and agricultural sector.
They submitted that ‘extending this provision serves to exacerbate the already unpredictable and non-transparent nature of the local government rating system’.
Last year, farmers in the Bundaberg region were hit with a $2.4 million increase in their rates bills for this financial year. More than 200 farmers saw their rates bills double. AgForce south-east regional councillor Tom Marland told the committee—
This year we have effectively had an increase in unimproved land valuations across the board, and that varied depending on land type and tenure. What we further saw without notice from council was an average increase in rates—in some instances as high as 235 per cent—of 46 per cent and over 400 farmers who saw their rates double.
Without notice and without any consultation from council we saw the rates take from category 9 rural ratepayers go up by $2.4 million but no actual clear indication if those increased rates would go into additional services or additional administration requirements from council.
Tom Marland said that AgForce, Bundaberg canegrowers, Isis canegrowers and Bundaberg fruit and vegetable growers worked in unison to lobby the council. He said that, despite their combined efforts, they ‘were unable to get any changes to those rate increases and no explanation for the justification for those rate increases’. The rate increases were imposed at the same time as farmers in the agricultural sectors in the Bundaberg region were in their third year of drought. The sector is experiencing significant labour shortages and water security issues regarding Paradise Dam. He said that against this backdrop ‘we have a council that has taken the opportunity to effectively double rates without any justification. We are, unfortunately, an example of what can happen when councils take the decision to increase rates without any consultation.
Agriculture is worth $18 billion and makes up 15 per cent of the state’s total exports. It operates on 84 per cent of the state and, as such, most local government areas include agricultural businesses. It employs 60,000 people directly and more than 300,000 people throughout the supply chain. Two-thirds of the state is currently drought declared and parts of Western Queensland are now entering their eighth year of consecutive drought. Unemployment in regional areas is increasing.
The Queensland Farmers’ Federation represents the interests of 21 peak national and state agricultural industry organisations which collectively represent 13,000 farmers. It engages in a broad range of economic, social, environmental and regional issues of strategic importance to the productivity, sustainability and growth of the agricultural sector. AgForce is the peak organisation representing Queensland’s rural producers. AgForce wants to ensure the long-term growth, viability, competitiveness and profitability of broadacre industries of cattle, grain, cane, sheep and wool in Queensland. AgForce Queensland policy specialist Lauren Hewitt told the committee—
We are more than happy to pay our fair share of rates. We are just concerned that our institution is used to balance local governments’ annual budgets. We understand this bill will allow them to increase rates midyear. We appreciate that may provide some short-term financial sustainability, but it comes at the expense of the viability of our industries and those communities. It creates an unpredictable operating environment for our members, and that will have a direct impact on jobs, local businesses and future investment. Like every other business, those costs have to be predictable and justifiable, especially in these times when we are seeing industries having to bounce back from the last 12 months. These legislative amendments will come at a cost to industries and our communities.
We cannot afford to keep imposing burdens on the very industries which are vitally important to Queensland’s economic recovery. Local governments should be careful because by propping up their bottom line and funding poor budgetary decisions by gouging industries, such as the agricultural sectors, they can cost their communities and local employment opportunities. All decisions relating to COVID matters should be part of a planned response and not done in an ad hoc way with limited regard for broader considerations.
My support for this bill is not support for the indiscriminate approval of such measures in the future without reference to the prevailing conditions. The government should not expect a free ride on similar future bills. Emergency legislation passed at the height of the pandemic is no substitute for proper legislation and policy. It is no substitute for better legislation and for proper committee scrutiny and careful consideration in this parliament. The government must be held to account for the use of these emergency powers. The government must be willing to reverse these arrangements when circumstances permit. I support the bill.