The Australian Made Campaign enthusiastically welcomes the agreement by the country’s political leaders to broaden the GST to cover overseas online transactions worth less than $1000.

The decision will be referred to a meeting of Australia’s Treasurers in August.

“We congratulate all the Governments on arriving at this decision, which will remove a fundamental flaw in our tax system, whereby Australia has been effectively penalising our local retailers, and through that, our local manufacturers and producers,” Australian Made Campaign Chief Executive, Ian Harrison, said.

“Eliminating this discriminatory application of the GST will help level the playing field for local products competing with imports.”

“The positive ramifications for Australian producers and manufacturers and the retailers that stock their products will be tremendous if this goes ahead,” Mr Harrison said.

The Australian Made Campaign is the not-for-profit organisation that administers and promotes Australia’s registered country-of-origin certification trade mark for all genuine Aussie products and produce.

The Australian Made, Australian Grown logo is used by thousands of Australian businesses to help readily identify their products as locally made and grown.

It had been calling for the abolition or reduction of the tax-free threshold since 2012.

ABOUT THE AUSTRALIAN MADE, AUSTRALIAN GROWN LOGO

The green-and-gold Australian Made, Australian Grown (AMAG) logo is the only registered country-of-origin certification trade mark for the full range of genuine Australian products and produce.

The AMAG logo supports growers, processors and manufacturers in Australia by helping businesses to clearly identify to consumers that their products are Australian. At the same time it provides consumers with a highly recognised and trusted symbol for genuine Aussie products and produce. It does both of these things in conjunction with a campaign encouraging consumers to look for the logo when shopping; it has been doing this since its introduction by the federal Government in 1986.

The AMAG logo can only be used on products that are registered with the not-for-profit organisation Australian Made Campaign Limited. The strict set of rules governing the logo’s use also require that it must always be used with one of five descriptors; ‘Australian Made’, ‘Australian Grown’, ‘Product of Australia’, ‘Australian Seafood’ or ‘Australian’ (for export use only). To use the logo goods must meet the criteria set out in the Australian Consumer Law as well the more stringent Australian Made, Australian Grown Logo Code of Practice. More than 2200 businesses are registered to use the AMAG logo, which can be found on some 15,000 products sold here and around the world.

Australian Made Campaign Limited is located at Suite 105, 161 Park Street, South Melbourne, VIC 3205.