There was not much joy in the Federal Budget for the farming and agribusiness sectors, according to RSM Australia’s national agribusiness leader Ross Paterson.
The agribusiness and farming sectors have been given a mild reprieve, with the continuation, albeit reduced, of the very popular instant asset write-off.
“Given no pre-Budget announcements, the fear was that this would end, and there were concerns that it would revert to its previous $1000 threshold,” Mr Paterson said.
“It was wishful thinking that the government would offer $30k or $40k but in the end it was $20k, which was disappointing,” Mr Paterson said.
“Another disappointing factor was that the heavy vehicle road user charge is being increased from 27.2 cents per litre to 32.4 cents per litre in 2025/26 (a 6% increase per year).
“This effectively reduces the fuel tax credits available to road transport operators (estimated to be a saving of $1.1 billion for the government) which could result in road freight costs increasing for agribusiness generally that mostly rely on road freight for supplies – and for farmers transporting livestock and grain to markets.
“Mobile phone coverage is an ongoing issue for rural and regional Australia, and I couldn’t see any big picture spending on this. Mobile phone blackspots remain a significant issue in regional areas that impacts on business in terms of timely communications/accessing cloud-based technology services along with OHS issues for people working in remote areas.”
Mr Paterson noted the series of 18 grants to farmers and organisations across Australia from the Future Drought Fund, to help manage climate risks; and a biosecurity boost that left farmers possibly no better off.
“The biosecurity boost is going to be offset in part by increased levies for producers/importers which is giving with one hand and taking with the other.
“To say that it is only farmers/importers that benefit from biosecurity measures is disingenuous. An outbreak of foot and mouth, for example, would not only be devastating for our livestock producers but would also significantly impact our tourism industry.
“It was also frustrating and a missed opportunity that no agri-specific migration visa announcements were made in the budget,” he said.
“There were a potential positive in regional housing spend but we’ll need to read the fine print to see how much this might assist agri businesses in particular to be able to attract employees with affordable housing.”
