Vic: Nats pan Vic govt's business package
MELBOURNE, April 23 AAP - The Victorian National Party has dismissed the state government'sbusiness statement as "smoke and mirrors", saying there was very little in the $364 millionpackage for country Victoria.
The government allocated $26 million in funding to promote business opportunities inregional and rural Victoria in the pre-budget package announced yesterday.
This included $8 million to boost the competitiveness of the farm sector through theFarmBis program, and $3 million over four years to help identify new food industries.
A further $10 million was allocated to develop regional tourism infrastructure, and$5 million to improve regional telecommunications infrastructure.
National Party Victorian Leader Peter Ryan said most of these initiatives were not new.
"Country people should not be fooled by this package," Mr Ryan said.
"It is yet another case of the government reannouncing previous commitments, and extendingprograms like FarmBis that have always received recurrent funding in the past anyway."
He said the $10 million in tourism funding would have been welcome, expect that itwas drawn from the Regional Infrastructure Development Fund, with money lost to otherprojects.
Mr Ryan said the "payback" to regional Victoria in terms of business tax cuts was apittance compared to increased revenues to the government from stamp duty and other taxes.
However, Premier Steve Bracks said today the package was aimed at helping businesses statewide.
He said country Victoria would benefit from specially targeted initiatives in the package,and from the broader initiatives such as the $262 million in business tax cuts and the$27 million for manufacturing.
"There are significant incentives in the tourism package, in the manufacturing packageand in the tax relief package, which will assist enormously regional business, regionalenterprises," Mr Bracks told reporters.
AAP bp/gfr/jnb
KEYWORD: BUSINESS VIC NATS
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