Pay an Outback bonus

July 31, 2007, 10:17pm,  282 views

I am strongly in favor of zone tax rebates. Australia needs to decentralise and there should be incentives to encourage this.

The government has already set a precedent by giving cash to influence population through the baby bonus. It’s not a huge leap of logic to reward taxpayers who are prepared to live away from the coast.

Apart from persuading Peter Costello and Wayne Swan, the other difficulty is to define those areas that are eligible. It’s not my job to do that, but one suggestion might be to grant a rebate of $5000 per year to taxpayers who live more than 500km from a capital city and more than 300km from the coast.

That would rule out most of the growing regional cities in the eastern States and give a huge boost to places like Kalgoorlie-Boulder.

Imagine the impact that would have on fly-in fly-out? Five thousand dollars each for a husband and wife would be a big incentive for them to live in Kalgoorlie-Boulder, rather than Perth.

The baby bonus worked. Bring on the “outback bonus”.