The Australian horticulture industry has claimed government plans to remove a 40 per cent rebate on the cost of quarantine services will kill off airfreight exports.
The rebate is set to expire from the start of July, after which exporters will bear the full cost of inspections by the Australian quarantine authorities.
David Minnis from the Australian Horticultural Exporters’ Association said the government is attempting to rush the changes through parliament, and hasn’t consulted with the industry.
“They’ve proposed three models to replace the current system, which they’ve been working on for months, and they’ve given us a week to comment on them,” Mr Minnis told Fruitnet.
“All of the models have put up the cost across each shipment, but they haven’t taken into account the volume difference between air and seafreight. Seafreight can absorb a much higher cost, and I think this will kill of airfreight exports from Australia.”
Mr Minnis said Australia was in a unique position among suppliers to be able to airfreight overnight into Asia relatively cheaply, and under the new system the country will lose that advantage.
“We’ve had a A$250m decline in exports over the last few years, and putting up export fees is a good way to stop exports,” he said.
In response to complaints by the opposition party, the federal government responded that the plan to phase out the rebate was put in place by the previous government, and would not add significantly to exporters’ costs, reported the ABC.
“The previous government had it expiring at the end of the current financial year, and it does expire at the end of the financial year,” said Agriculture Minister Tony Burke.
“We’ve had ABARE `Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics` model what the cost would actually be to exporters and the ABARE modelling came back that the cost to exporters would be the same as the equivalent as a half of one cent movement in the Australian dollar.”
The opposition said it was not a good idea to impose more costs on the agriculture industry, which is the only sector of the Australian economy still growing.
