Population Minister Tony Burke considers measures to reduce fly-in, fly-out workers | Perth Now
Employers urged to stop fly-in fly-out
Population spread out of kilter - Minister
Ban on city fringe estates being considered
A UNION leader wants tax concessions for giant miners to end the damaging practice of flying workers in and out of projects rather than setting them up in local housing.
Australian Workers' Union national secretary Paul Howes believes a lower regional rate in the fringe benefits tax (FBT) would encourage mining companies to provide accommodation for workers and their families.
The FBT is paid on employer-provided housing.
Reducing the use of fly-in, fly-out rosters would create regional centres, keep more of the income from mining in the local region, and be an incentive to sign on to work in labour starved projects, Mr Howes told news.com.au.
Thousands of workers operating Australia's biggest mining projects in Queensland and Western Australia fly in for shifts of up to, for example, 10 days straight, and then fly out to return home for a week before repeating the travel.
But Mr Howes said the system wasn't popular because it took workers away from their families for long periods.
There also are complaints that while the miners earn big salaries, they spend the money at home in Sydney, Melbourne or Perth and not locally where they work.
Population Minister Tony Burke has called fly-in, fly-out "possibly the best example of how the distribution of our population in Australia has become so far out of kilter".
"When fly-in, fly-out has effectively become the only option for many people wanting to work in those regions, it means we haven't planned the distribution of people across Australia well enough," Mr Burke said today, launching independent reports on population growth.
The Government will consider the problems with fly-in, fly-out operations as it prepares a response to the reports, scheduled for April.
Mr Burke said he also would be looking at the impact of a higher population growth on the liveability of cities which already have congestion problems.
There are fears that a fast-growing population would worsen problems in cities caused by congestion and lack of public facilities such as hospitals.
Mr Burke today acknowledged there were many city dwellers "who discovered they no longer had half an hour of daylight at the end of the day after a long commute home".
He called for improved urban design which moved people closer to their jobs, and upgraded transport systems.
The Minister said he wanted to "avoid the continued creation of dormitory suburbs", which would of itself "have a massive impact on congestion".
"But let's not forget: When you have good urban planning, every local job is a car off the road," said Mr Burke.
"As long as you have situations where we have a long distance between where the jobs are and where the homes are, you necessarily put more pressure on people with traffic."
Mr Burke said there would be increasing development of "master planned communities" which would have affordable housing, parklands and "availability of local jobs".
"We always talk about it in terms of the time you spend in traffic. That's actually not the worst of it. The worst of it is the time you don't spend at home," he said.
The report of one panel, headed by Heather Ridout, CEO of the employer organisation the Australian Industry Group, said an increased population would provide the funding and the incentive to make cities more livable.
However, another panel, headed by former New South Wales Premier Bob Carr, said a growing population would put greater demands on transport systems and worsening congestion which was "lengthening working hours and unfavourably tilting the work/life balance".
The Government will not set immigration targets and the annual intake would be set with the Budget, said Mr Burke.