AUSVEG, the leading national vegetable industry body, the Voice of Horticulture, the peak industry body for the horticulture industry, and Citrus Australia, the peak industry body for the citrus industry, have all demanded that the ongoing saga over the taxation status of working holiday makers be brought to an end.

“Australian growers are sick and tired of their industry being treated as a political football while they struggle in their search for any kind of certainty about the backpacker tax,” said AUSVEG CEO, Simon Bolles.

“AUSVEG welcomed the spirit of bipartisanship in which the Government offered its compromise deal of 15 per cent. While we are unhappy about the changes to the taxation of superannuation which have already been passed and which would increase the effective rate of that compromise deal to well over 20 per cent, we hoped to see this debate finish with an internationally competitive rate. We are incredibly disappointed that this has not happened.”

“The Australian horticulture industry is being held to ransom for the sake of political games and brinkmanship, and this cannot go on,” said Tania Chapman, Chair of Voice of Horticulture and Citrus Australia.

“The damaging and dangerous 32.5 per cent rate cannot be allowed to come into effect, or Australian horticulture will suffer and the blame will be placed squarely at the feet of every politician who placed political expediency above the livelihoods of our growers. This must end now.”

Voice of Horticulture is a member-based organisation that represents horticultural growers and businesses across fruit, nuts, mushrooms, turf, nursery plants, vegetables and cut flowers.