Kevin Rudd’s proposal for a “northern zone” with low company tax rates to attract businesses has been widely ridiculed in the media as another crazy thought bubble. I think it is a great idea. As long as northern Australia is defined as everywhere north of Australian Antarctic Territory, and the corporate tax cut is funded by a widening of the GST tax base and an increase in the GST rate then it would be the first policy proposal to make any kind of sense. Looking forward to seeing further thought bubbles.
But I’m still a bit confused. The Labor party have ruled out a GST increase so presumably the revenue to pay for the corporate tax cut will come from some new hokey company tax levy, or a levy on the levy on the medicare levy. Either that or we’ll all have to move to Darwin. Sounds pretty daft really…maybe the northern zone should be PNG. They can have our asylum seekers and our leaders crazy thought bubbles.