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Family First Senator Steve Fielding has earnt himself an Agmates “Onya” award after negotiating an exemption for farmers from the Labor Governments “Luxury Car Tax”.
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After voting against the bill two weeks ago, Senator Fielding has managed to squeeze $40 million worth of concessions out of the Government that will see tourism operators and farmers able to claim back the tax after buying four-wheel-drives.
“The amendments negotiated with the Government provide refunds to farmers and tourism operators so they can claim back the extra 8% car tax from the Tax Office once they have purchased their four-wheel-drive vehicle,” Senator Fielding said.
“The amendments allow claims up to $3000 per year for primary producers and $3000 per vehicle per year for tourism operators.”
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Senator Fielding Voted with the coalition to pass the bill the second time it was presented after the amendments were made. Fielding and the coalition understand that owning a four wheel drive vehicle for farmers is a safety issue not a luxury.
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“Farmers are also dependent on heavy-duty four-wheel-drive vehicles … which offer reliability and safety in regional and remote areas.”
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Farmers when they leave their properties must negotiate unsealed roads many of which are only suitable for four wheel drives. They must also negotiate the dangers livestock on unfenced roads and the perils of native fauna including Kanagroos, Pigs, Emus etc.
Apparently those in the labor party have no concept of driving on bush roads and as usual have no quarms in screwing our farmers any time they can.
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So a big “Onya” to Senator Fielding from the Agmates community and farmers across Australia.
A big Thumbs up from us.
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Have Your Say!
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Tags: 'onya', Family First, Farmers, four wheel drives, Labor, Senate, Steve Fielding
Surey farmers don’t use >57k 4wds for actual work do they?
I mean a tru blu Ute or ToJo working 4wd…
I guess one of those occasions where the romanticism of the bush has worked in the rural regions favour.
G’day Matt,
Thats correct. Farmers have work utes for around the property. Its once you leave the farm to go too town or the big smoke that you need the four wheel drive wagon.
Not that practical to have mum & dad in the front of the ute and the kids tied up on the back with the dogs and the esky’s (When you live an hour or three out of town you need the eskys to get the cold goods home when you go shopping)
Most farming families have moved onto the wagon as they found with the kids tied up on the back of the Tojo ute (you have to tie them on so they don’t get thrown out on the rough corrugated dirt roads) their clothes get a bit grubby with the bulldust or wet if its raining. Also a small issue with the kids getting skin cancer and wind burn because they can’t keep a hat on in the dry hot wind.
Also in the Tojo ute, anything you buy while in town gets covered in dust on the way home, or if it rains gets a bit wet.
I can hear you say why don’t they own a Holden / Falcon Sedan to drive to town and back, a 4×4 wagon is just a luxury.
The simple answer is:
Sedans are built for bitumen running, ie low to the ground - don’t suppose you’ve thought much about driving down a dirt road in a sedan and hitting a rock that punches a hole in your sump and leaves you stranded on a lonely bush road with no mobile service with the kids in the car in 40 degree heat.
But ah what the hell - there farmers wives and kids - there tough - a 10-20km walk to the closest property in the 40 degree heat or rain is good for them.
If you have a friend who is a car dealer ask him what he thinks of trading a bush car. Ask him what the underneath of a Sedan that has been driven continually on bush dirt roads looks like - the answer is a bit like the surface of the moon - from continual stone bruising -
Hey the best one in a sedan is when you come around a bend in the road and there is a dead kangaroo right in the middle of the road with a huge set of 6 inch deep wheel ruts on one side and a dirty great pot hole on the other - so there is nowhere to go except straight over the roo. Its particularly good when the roo has been lying in the hot sun for a couple of days. It blows up a bit in the heat.
Now in a 4×4 you have the clearance to get over the roo without touching it. In a car you have got no chance. Whats really good if on the way through the dead carcass does not rip the muffler off is the bits of the roo that get jammed between the muffler and the floor pan of the car. Ever experienced the putrid smell of bar-b-queing rotting flesh filling the car and making you dry wretch as you drive along? I have. It’s great fun getting out under the car in the dirt with a piece of fencing wire or a stick trying to scrap it off the muffler.
Also the tyres on a sedan have a lot thinner wall than a Four Wheel Drive tyre. Dirt roads are really hard on sedan tyres that are built for bitumen running. 20 years ago working in Western QLD we used to drive sedans. Always carried 2 spares and on more than 1 occasion used both in a day.
Matt I could go on and on and nearly have - but just one last question - have you ever driven a Sedan along a dirt road and a mob of Roos or emus or Pigs comes screaming out across the road in front of you?
Ever seen the damage a 6 foot western red does to a sedan - head on at 100kms an hour. When it happens in a sedan even with a bull bar you know your not going any further as you watch the bar crumple back through the radiator. You just have to be careful that you are not breaking hard when you hit it as that pulls the nose of the car down and flips the Roo up across the bonnet, through the windscreen an into the car with you, the wife and kids. Ever been in a sedan when a 6 foot Western Red comes through the windscreen? The one thing you are hoping is that the impact killed him, cause if it didn’t its not much fun for you and the family when he’s in the car with you and starts trashing about.
Aaaah but I can hear you now - “bloody farmers they’re always whinging about something.”
Crikey Steve... we must have it easy in WA!!! YOu should try becoming a global warming alarmist they way you like to spin a yarn
G’day Matt,
Thanks for that, you can take your tongue out of your cheek now
Mate how was the Perth show? Never been. Been to Adelaide, Sydney & Brisbane but not Perth.
What was the highlite of the day for you?
my 2 year 9 month old insisting in 4 goes on some little rollercoaster.
I’ll tell you the highlight was NOT the $28 a head entry fee and then $5 per little toddler kiddy ride he went on, and the super expensive food - god help me when the two lads are 15… thankfully has not discovered showbags yet.
The weather was awesome, and it was packed out. Hanging out with my niece who was up from Albany was great too - she loves our lads so it was like having a baysitter.
He loves the animals but got scared by a narky ram (lovely looking sheep). Plus we checked out a lot of tractors and watched the Holden Ute team do some stunt driving (not my cup of tea being a greenie - really wanted to see the odd prius leap through the air).
My traditional fave is the Landcare pavillion -they do some really great interactive green focussed displays… but you’d approve it is all good about geting kids a bit closer to nature rather than anything too preachy).
Hey did you see that your mate Flannery is doing that TV show across the top end in a Prius… takes it through some interesting terrain given the comments in these posts.. mind you I’m sure they have a fleet of crew in big white Cruisers.
p.s. nowadays I don’t really get off major highways heading north or south, in case you’d not already guessed that.
But I’m sure they we will now have market gardeners in perth suburbs getting tax-discounts on top of the range 4wds… I don;t like that much.
This is one good example of the AgForce every family needs a farmer that could be used,
To show to Matt and others the reality confronted daily by families in the bush, I remember my wife spinning off the slippery road driving 20 odd ks to the school bus regularly in a valiant wagon..is better now, improvement is slow. At least if you spin off the road in a 4wd you have a chance. Still without a car kit no phone in most places, but hell 95% get looked after.
Matt get a life, take a drive into the heart of your country, especially after dark when the nocturnals turn up.
And Steve I remember doing that with a dead roo, the mechanic was a bit grumpy fixing it.
When we had an ordinary old Ford , I would often spin or get bogged.
The kids use to think it was fun sliding and spinning or walking.
We would not get out of our house and over creeks if we didn’t have a 4WD.
We needed a 4WD to get the kids to boarding school too.
I try not to run into roos and walabies but sometimes the dumb ones run into me and the 4WD copes with that better.
We have a 4WD ute and a 4WD wagon , not the top range ones but we couldn’t do without them.
I’m not sure what to think of Senator Fielding yet.
4WDs are a savior in the bush people!
Have you had to drive through flood waters that were over the bonnet to rescue livestock and deliver feed or get the kids to school, and been safe coz the 4×4 was heavy enough not to be dragged by flood force.
Ever had to drag a cow out of a bog??? or the tractor out of a bog for that matter!
Tell me what happens when a 4×4 has a prang? Most of the time the driver walks away with a bruise or two but when a tinny town bubble hits something the driver usually dies and there ain’t much left of the car. Lets not up the road toll by putting weaker and smaller cars of remote, unfenced, unmaintained roads!
Our 4wd is expensive but it tows the stock crate and 4WD trailer, gets up the driveway, grips the road in gravel, bulldust, flood water etc. It carts heavy loads of stock feed, fencing materials to places where we could never afford the freight. It handles roos, stray cattle and pigs etc.
I wouldn’t say its a romanticism of the bush but a reality. I certainly wouldn’t feel safe on the road if I didn’t have the 4WD.
I was just asking
NO offence intended.
Anyway I just got back from a day at the Perth Royal Show so I’m all in touch with my agricultural side!
Still though, a farmer in a top of the range landcruiser with all the trimmings should be paying luxury car tax, if a bloke in the city has to on a car over $57 or so k. You can apply all the same safety arguments to expensive cars as you can trucks/4wds. I guess if it is only $3k bonus then the top of the range cruiser will still be paying a fair whack of luxury car tax? maybe maybe not.
Every day I see young men in the city driving around in their fancy pants Holden and Forts sports Utes, knowing they are more affordable because they are taxed at a much lower rate than “cars” because farmers need utes.
Similarly did you know that Suburu have a full range of 2wd vehicles that they don’t sell in Oz because they end up costing the same as the 4wd versions because, again, they are taxed at a lower rate because “farmers” need them.
Yeah all those farmers dropping their kids of at inner city private schools day in day out before they nip out for a latte.
Hey Matt,
Being from Perth, I’ll let an ex Sand groper Rowell respond to your comment above when he has the time.
Over to you Rowell.
No Offence taken Matt,
But it goes to show how a policy or law can be put through to target one group and unintentionally harm another.
I am well aware of the suburban housewife syndrome (e.g “my hubby earns big so I drive a big car”), or the urban cowboy who thought 4WDs were “heaps cool” and hoons in it but has never seen a dirt road (I’m not referring to genuine country blokes living in town to boost their income that drive 4WDs, in this case I’m referring to bar-stool cowboys)
The point is that farmers should be exempt from the tax because to us it isn’t a luxury car!
Its like owning a working stockhorse, its not a weekend pleasure hack, its a tool of the trade. A quad bike is not a toy its a piece of machinery and so on.
As Rowell said, by voicing your thoughts on this you are allowing us to set the record straight and explain why we do what we do and why we need the things that we ask for. This is a concept that is poorly understood by much or the urban community.
The more dialogue the better. I think everyone deserves to be better informed.
“This is a concept that is poorly understood by much or the urban community.”
Yes for at least the last decade city folk have thought we were mad staying out in the bush. As they come back down to earth maybe they change their thinking - who knows.
It would have been very nice to have some more rain to fill out the wheat and barley heads - I better not whinge though as we choose to live out here - probably rain heaps when we are trying to harvest. That’s difficult Australia.
I told my husband we are some of the best farmers in the world because we have to put up with a harsh climate and not very fertile soils.
Been in Queensland for several decades now, but when I go home I am staggered at the quality of roads, in the South anyway and on the main highways, too easy to get booked.
You do a great job Matt of giving us a chance to attempt to put the record straight.
I often contemplate the traffic as I drive out of Bris at peak hour, the Ipswich road is a nightmare, its time they made multi level freeways so the traffic can flow, better perking at public transport inlets (trains, buses) and it is a fact that significant money is needed there and I don’t mind if my bitumen waits for a time while we deal with urban need.
Keep it up Matt….I love the bush and would not change my place in the world for anything, but my mind reminds me that I know many people who have made the adjustment and now look back and wonder why they took so long to make the move…forced or not.
Perth though is one sweet tidy town, and not too hard to find your way about…they tell me the season is a pretty good one, bit late.