The time it took the federal government to make its position clear on taxing foreign fruit pickers has caused uncertainty.
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As demand for labour starts to heat up, overseas workers appear to have gone cold on spending their working holiday in Australia.
The industry believes the uncertainty over whether Australia would remain competitive with other popular destinations like New Zealand and Canada has caused a 40 per cent decline in prospective workers.
There is a risk of downplaying the significance of the workforce – seeing them as only itinerant workers who live cheap and put little back into the economy.
However, backpackers are not known for saving their cash and spend most of their money locally.
The situation came about because the government needs more revenue to improve the budget’s bottom line.
As people on working holidays use Australia’s public infrastructure, it seems fair to tax a share of their income.
The federal government initially planned to make people working on a holiday visa pay 32.5 cents in the dollar and abolish their tax-free threshold from July 1.
Producers, however, feared the rate was too high and would impact the industry’s ability to attract workers.
The government later delayed the starting date by six months pending a review.
At least a deal has been reached for a 19 per cent rate, which The Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association believes will keep Australia competitive.
It took work on the part of many local representatives and producers to bring about the government’s backdown over the issue on Tuesday.
Governments of all stripes need to strike a balance between consultation, consideration and decision making and be willing to change tack if faced with strong evidence.
But its approach to the backpacker tax has shown the risks of delaying decisions.
Now producers are preparing for a shortage of seasonal workers and risk not having workers to pick fruit at the right time.
This could have been prevented with decisive action from the federal government when the tax was worrying agriculture several months ago.
The government is offering $10 million to promote backpacker jobs. Hopefully that will repair the damage that appears to have been done.