05 June 2015

FEDERAL Member for New England, Barnaby Joyce said a clear indication of how the Federal Government’s policies to assist farmers and small businesses can be seen at CRT FarmFest, Toowoomba with Queensland’s largest agricultural field day kicking off today [Tuesday 2 June 2015].

Mr Joyce said he’d received reports that people are buying more small machinery, cattle handling equipment and motorbikes at the field days and this was a direct endorsement of the policy introduced on the 12 May Budget to declare a 100 per cent tax write-off for any capital item under the value of $20,000.

Mr Joyce said the decision to bring forward 100 per cent tax deductibility for water infrastructure such as dams, water tanks, pipes and irrigation channels would also benefit the expected 60,000 or so visitors over the three days of the event.

“We’ve also introduced 100 per cent deductibility for fencing and accelerated three-year tax deduction for silos hay sheds and other forage storage infrastructure,” Mr Joyce said.

CRT FarmFest organiser, the Tamworth-based Fairfax Rural Events’ Group Manager, Kate Nugent said there were more than 2,500 companies exhibiting at CRT FarmFest site, just 20 kilometres west of Toowoomba and the talk among the avenues of exhibits was the depreciation policies introduced in the Budget.

“These policies will certainly generate some sales for our exhibitors,” Ms Nugent said.

“This is one of Queensland’s biggest farm field days and the exhibitors are banking on what the Government has delivered in the Budget to help generate some sales for them,” she said.

“There's everything from abrasives to air seeders, ATVs to augers, bins to boomsprays, bull bars to brush cutters, cattle to cultivators, engines to electric fences, front end loaders to fuel supplies, grain dryers to grader blades, harvesters to hoses, laser levellers to livestock, mulchers to mobile phones, ploughs to pumps rock pickers to rippers, sheds to sawmills, tractors to tanks, welders to wood splitters and zero till planters,” she said.

One of the Queensland’s major agricultural suppliers, Farmcraft Director, Alistair Ross said his chain of stores is noticing a definite improvement in sales of cattle handling equipment, farm motorbikes and small machinery sales.

Mr Ross said the 2,500 exhibitors at this week’s CRT FarmFest should notice the effect as the Budget announcement starts to make a bit more money flow in the bush.