ANOTHER massive new tax on Queensland grazing - costing $100 million a year or more - will be imposed by the State Government when charges on stock routes and road reserves pass through Parliament this month.
The charges, to be collected by local councils, apply to 2.7 million hectares of crown land that is the Queensland network of stock routes, plus an unknown area of crown land road reserves.
The impact of the charges will hit hard in an export industry squeezed by uncompetitive labour charges and unfavourable currency exchange rates.
The state's tax on communal land follows massive increases in leasehold land rents, new federal quarantine and meat inspection charges, and the proposed carbon tax - all of which do not apply to the meat industry's overseas competitors.
The size of the proposed tax grab is still under debate, but the rental rate proposed by the Bligh Government would generate more than half a million dollars in annual revenue from stock routes within (for example) Flinders Shire alone.
Statewide, the government-preferred rent - 5 percent of the land's unimproved capital value - would generate about $110m a year. That's without allowing for road reserves, which would add tens of millions of dollars more to the tax bill.
Flinders Shire, based on Hughenden, has been used as an example in State Government briefings on its proposed legislation.
Its total area of 41,422sq km contains 400km of primary stock routes covering 1730sq km or 4.2pc of the shire area. With a total unimproved capital value of $12m, these stock routes and others across the state have existed for 100 years or more. They have been available for use by landholders free of charge.
The same applies to road reserves - areas of land containing roads or set aside for future road use. On stock routes, traditional charges for travelling stock are set by councils at token rates.
But under the government's Stock Route Network Management Bill, landholders will be required to pay to use both categories of land for the first time.
In response to the plan for a 5pc charge, farm groups have proposed a cap of 1.5pc, which would cut the rental cost of the Flinders Shire network to $180,000.
Other proposals have canvassed charges including 0.8pc (raising $96,000 in Flinders or $15m statewide) and 3pc ($360,000 or $60m statewide).
The Bill has been under investigation by the Parliamentary Transport and Local Government Committee, which is due to report on February 6.
Its chairwoman, Bundamba MP Jo-Anne Miller, plus councils and farm groups, have asked for accurate, statewide costings relating to stock routes. Details, including the number of adjoining and affected landholders, and all statistics and projections arising from the inclusion of road reserves have also been sought, but not yet provided.
Based on an extrapolation of the Flinders Shire figures, a conservative estimate of the statewide Bill at the lower 1.5pc rate proposed by farm groups is still $30m and does not include revenue from road reserves.
Farm lobby group AgForce has been told the missing data on the impact of the Bill will be supplied when it is presented to Parliament for a vote during the sit- tings beginning on February 14.
AgForce cattle policy director, Andrew Simpson, said his organisation agreed that landholders should pay for the use of stock route reserves, but warned that overcharging would result in land being locked up and lost to production.
AgForce had three objectives it believed necessary to make the Bill workable.
Capping fees based on an affordable percentage of unimproved capital value, and taking into account adjoining land uses. Ensuring fees paid were redistributed back into the local area in which they were generated. Ensuring the future management of stock routes remained a joint activity for councils and landholders.< p>Mr Simpson said revenue generated by stock route leasing payments would allow councils to employ rangelands extension officers to monitor the condition of stock routes.
"But when work is required - to handle invasive weeds or to repair fences and troughs - it will be the land-holder, the one paying to lease the land, who will do the job," Mr Simpson said.
"We need to preserve the stock-route network. At the moment it is in disrepair. There are broken bores and no one to fix them. Many of the existing stock routes have been inactive since the 40s and 50s and at the same time, there are graziers getting to use the land for free."
He said early fears the government might convert stock routes into nature reserves in a political ploy to please environmentalists at the expense of agriculture were assuaged by the legislation, which would vest control of stock routes in local councils.
"But there is still the concern that if the price of access to land is set too high, landholders will refuse to pay and the land will be fenced off," he said. "If that happens, everyone will be worse off. The land will be out of production. No-one will be responsible for its upkeep and the burden will fall to local ratepayers.
"We have seen in Victoria what happens when bushfires spread through a road network where there are weeds and overgrown bush-land because of a lack of public funding," he said. "That's one of the big risks this law is designed to address. If we were left with just a patchwork and no management - like we have on Cape York - one match will be enough to destroy the lot."
Mr Simpson said the capped 1.5pc rental endorsed by AgForce would make the proposed legislation 'digestible'. But he said councils and AgForce were continuing the fight to ensure money paid by local landholders was made available in the local community.
"In the beginning, the government wanted to keep 35 pc of the money in consolidated revenue and to hand over 65pc to the councils," he said. "We are pushing for councils to get 90pc. It is a big fight."
In preparing the legislation, the State Government re-categorised stock routes. The new system included two groups of primary stock-routes and a secondary stock-route network, all to come under the control of local authorities.
Key routes with essential features, such as watering and access points, would be in the primary 'A' category. They made up about 5pc of the network and would be subject to a longer list of protective requirements.
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