Latest news with #NickParr
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
State urges Boone and other counties to enact wheel tax
The State of Indiana is encouraging county and city governments to impose a new wheel tax. Any county, city, or town with a population of 5,000 or more can enact a wheel tax and excise surtax, but only about 54 of the state's 92 counties and about a dozen cities have, Boone County Highway Director Nick Parr told the county council this week. Changes in the tax laws this year created a significant reduction in the $1.5 million in grant money that is usually available to the county for road and bridge maintenance and replacements. And the state has set aside millions of dollars for direct distributions to municipalities and counties, but only if they have the excise and wheel taxes, which must be adopted together. Boone County payers don't pay either tax at present. The county would have to enact the taxes by Sept. 1 for it to take effect in January. According to Purdue University, the tax would apply to passenger vehicles, trucks, motorcycles, motor drive cycles (mopeds), trailers, collector vehicles, mini trucks, buses, semi-tractors, semi-trailers, and RVs. Allowable rates per conveyance range from a minimum of $5 to a maximum of $80 and would be paid annually through the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. The change in tax law and road funding is expected to prompt the majority of Hoosier counties to adopt the taxes, and the pool of funds will be spread thinner. But the county could lose $876,000 in state funds annually without the tax, according to a conservative estimate, Parr said. Parr did not ask the council to adopt the taxes, he just updated them on the situation. Council President Jennifer Hostetter thanked him for tracking changes in the tax laws this year and how they may affect the county. Planning money Also on Tuesday, the council approved of Hostetter signing a joint letter with Boone County Commissioners President Scott Pell asking the state to pay for a new county comprehensive plan at a cost of up to $400,000. A comprehensive plan is a written document that guides officials and citizens on the use of land, among other issues, according to the county website. Boone County's plan will establish rules for future growth for unincorporated land. Officials will seek public input in developing it. Counties usually update comprehensive plans every six or so years, county attorney Beth Copeland told the council. Boone County's plan is 16 years old, and the Indiana Economic Development Corp. recently began developing thousands of acres for LEAP Lebanon Innovation and Research District on Lebanon's north and west sides. The development necessitated a plan update, regardless of whether the county was financially ready. The IEDC is exempt from paying property taxes on land it has bought for development, although the land returns to the tax rolls when a business buys it for development, such as Eli Lilly and Co.'s 800 acres at two sites. Meta has also bought more than 1,000 acres to develop. The former agricultural and residential land is taxed at far greater rates, $100,000 per acre and more so far, when it is bought and rezoned for industrial use. Copeland said the state is careful in not referring to the money it may supply as a replacement for lost taxes, but rather as an economic development payment. Whatever they call it, taxpayer Brian Daggy asked Copeland to remind the IEDC that $400,000 is far less than it would pay for taxes on the now-exempt land. In other business, the council: * Narrowly voted to add a running time period on meeting agendas for council members to comment on matters of interest that were not on the agenda. But their comments will be limited to five minutes. The time limit proved controversial, with Aaron Williams warning that it puts the council on a 'slippery slope to censorship.' Williams, John Riner, and Dustin Plunkett voted no, while Hostetter, Shari Richey, Kevin Van Horn and Dan Lamar voted yes. Council members are not limited when speaking about regular agenda items, and the council can suspend rules to allow for more than five minutes as needed. * Approved the Boone County Commissioners' request to move money from their legal services budget line to the indirect consulting line to pay to activate a sewage district at Interstate 65 and Ind. 47 in anticipation of commercial development. * Hostetter announced the winner of the county employee's spring competition to get them walking. Maria Truitt, a court reporter, was in first place until Hostetter and Boone County Sheriff Tony Harris got into a fierce but friendly match at the end. Harris had to walk 22 miles the final day of the competition to beat Hostetter after they both walked 20 miles the previous day. Hostetter said with a laugh that Harris told her he wasn't walking the last day, so she laid off out of fatigue and let her guard down, while he sailed to first place. Hostetter was second, with Truitt coming in third.
The Age
30-04-2025
- Politics
- The Age
The 150 ways Australia's electorates are wildly different
But in a swag of regional electorates, more than a quarter of the electorate is aged 70-plus. This includes the NSW North Coast seat of Lyne (28.5 per cent over 70 years), the Queensland coastal seat of Hinkler (27.5 per cent) and Gilmore on the NSW South Coast (27.1 per cent). In Lyne, Hinkler and Gilmore, fewer than a third of voters are aged under 45. The number of electorates with a high share of older voters is on the rise. At the 2019 federal poll. only one electorate in Australia had more than 30,000 voters aged 70-plus; by 2022 that had risen to four seats and this year, there will be nine. Rodney Smith, professor of Australian politics at Sydney University, says the contrasting age profiles of some electorates poses a growing political challenge for major parties as they seek to balance differing political priorities. 'To get a majority in the House of Representatives, the major parties have always had to deal with the issue of representing electorates with very different interests,' he said. 'In the past, the disjunction between younger voters and older voters was not so pronounced, but now that age factor raises a new dimension of difficulty in electoral contests for those major parties.' Nick Parr, honorary professor of demography at Macquarie University, expects age differences between federal electorates to become more pronounced. 'You would expect the range of age profiles to grow over time with newly developed urban areas remaining relatively young,' he said. Just over 18 million people are enrolled to vote on May 3 – about 870,000 more than at the last election. Loading An Australian Electoral Commission spokesman says new migrants made up about 30 per cent of new enrolments in Australia, the vast majority of enrolment growth being younger voters turning 18 and enrolling to vote for the first time. The number of teens on the electoral roll (those aged 18 and 19 years) has jumped from 417,000 at the last election to 493,000 this year. The AEC said one reason for this increase was a change in 2023 that allowed Medicare cards to be used as proof of ID to enrol. 'This removed a significant barrier to entry for younger voters who might previously have had problems enrolling due to not having a driver's licence or passport,' an AEC spokesman said. Another factor was a boost in enrolments around the time of the Voice referendum in October 2023. Cultural diversity In many urban seats, voters come from an array of cultural backgrounds while those outside the major cities, especially in sprawling regional electorates, tend to be less multicultural. Parr says this reflects the settlement of overseas migrants, which has been concentrated in capital cities. Comparing the seat of Fowler in south-west Sydney with the giant electorate of Maranoa in western Queensland illustrates this trend. Census data shows that in Fowler, which takes in the suburbs of Liverpool and Cabramatta, three in every four households speak a language other than English. In Maranoa, that share is only one in every 20 households. For 77 per cent of Fowler's population both parents were born overseas but in Maranoa that share is just 10 per cent. But in many regional areas the population from a non-English-speaking background is on the rise. 'The last census showed an increasing cultural diversity across regional Australia with the spread of migrants into various regional areas,' Parr says. 'So, there may be new or growing ethnic communities that could influence voting patterns.' Gender Women outnumber men in Australia – the latest Bureau of Statistics estimates show that for every 100 females there are 98.6 males. That gap reflects the longer life expectancy of women. Even so, men are a majority in 12 of Australia's 150 electorates. Most of them are in regions where a significant share of the population is employed in male-dominated industries, especially mining and agriculture. In the Queensland electorate of Flynn, which spans inland from Gladstone, there are 2380 (or 4 per cent) more males than females, which is the largest gender gap in favour of men of any electorate. In the giant West Australian electorate of Durak, which includes the iron ore mining hub of Pilbara, there are about 2 per cent more men than women. But seats with male majorities are also found in the heart of our biggest cities. In the electorate of Sydney, men outnumber women by nearly 6000, while there are 1436 more males enrolled than females in the seat of Melbourne. The largest gender gap favouring women is in the seat of Fisher, north of Brisbane, where there are 7365 more female voters than males. Loading The past two federal elections have been marked by the success of female 'teal' independents in affluent electorates previously considered Liberal Party heartland. Election role data shows most the seats where teal candidates prevailed have a significant female majority, especially Goldstein in Melbourne, held by Zoe Daniel (6489 more women than men), Warringah in Sydney, held by Zali Steggall (4290 more women than men) and Mackellar, held by Sophie Scamps (4130 more women than men). Number of voters per electorate The average number of voters per federal electorate has reached 120,650 – an all-time high. But there are marked variations in the number of voters in seats across the nation. That's because the Australian Constitution, adopted in 1901, stipulates that each 'original state' must have at least five seats in the House of Representatives. Patterns of population growth since federation mean that electorates in the smallest state, Tasmania, have far fewer voters than the national average. (In 1901, Tasmania accounted for nearly 5 per cent of the national population, but that share has shrunk to about 2 per cent). The two electorates in the sparsely populated Northern Territory also have fewer voters than the rest of the country. Election roll data shows the seat of Clark in Hobart has the lowest number of voters at 74,315, while the electorate of Lingiari in the Northern Territory has the second lowest at 76,836.
Sydney Morning Herald
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
The 150 ways Australia's electorates are wildly different
But in a swag of regional electorates, more than a quarter of the electorate is aged 70-plus. This includes the NSW North Coast seat of Lyne (28.5 per cent over 70 years), the Queensland coastal seat of Hinkler (27.5 per cent) and Gilmore on the NSW South Coast (27.1 per cent). In Lyne, Hinkler and Gilmore, fewer than a third of voters are aged under 45. The number of electorates with a high share of older voters is on the rise. At the 2019 federal poll. only one electorate in Australia had more than 30,000 voters aged 70-plus; by 2022 that had risen to four seats and this year, there will be nine. Rodney Smith, professor of Australian politics at Sydney University, says the contrasting age profiles of some electorates poses a growing political challenge for major parties as they seek to balance differing political priorities. 'To get a majority in the House of Representatives, the major parties have always had to deal with the issue of representing electorates with very different interests,' he said. 'In the past, the disjunction between younger voters and older voters was not so pronounced, but now that age factor raises a new dimension of difficulty in electoral contests for those major parties.' Nick Parr, honorary professor of demography at Macquarie University, expects age differences between federal electorates to become more pronounced. 'You would expect the range of age profiles to grow over time with newly developed urban areas remaining relatively young,' he said. Just over 18 million people are enrolled to vote on May 3 – about 870,000 more than at the last election. Loading An Australian Electoral Commission spokesman says new migrants made up about 30 per cent of new enrolments in Australia, the vast majority of enrolment growth being younger voters turning 18 and enrolling to vote for the first time. The number of teens on the electoral roll (those aged 18 and 19 years) has jumped from 417,000 at the last election to 493,000 this year. The AEC said one reason for this increase was a change in 2023 that allowed Medicare cards to be used as proof of ID to enrol. 'This removed a significant barrier to entry for younger voters who might previously have had problems enrolling due to not having a driver's licence or passport,' an AEC spokesman said. Another factor was a boost in enrolments around the time of the Voice referendum in October 2023. Cultural diversity In many urban seats, voters come from an array of cultural backgrounds while those outside the major cities, especially in sprawling regional electorates, tend to be less multicultural. Parr says this reflects the settlement of overseas migrants, which has been concentrated in capital cities. Comparing the seat of Fowler in south-west Sydney with the giant electorate of Maranoa in western Queensland illustrates this trend. Census data shows that in Fowler, which takes in the suburbs of Liverpool and Cabramatta, three in every four households speak a language other than English. In Maranoa, that share is only one in every 20 households. For 77 per cent of Fowler's population both parents were born overseas but in Maranoa that share is just 10 per cent. But in many regional areas the population from a non-English-speaking background is on the rise. 'The last census showed an increasing cultural diversity across regional Australia with the spread of migrants into various regional areas,' Parr says. 'So, there may be new or growing ethnic communities that could influence voting patterns.' Gender Women outnumber men in Australia – the latest Bureau of Statistics estimates show that for every 100 females there are 98.6 males. That gap reflects the longer life expectancy of women. Even so, men are a majority in 12 of Australia's 150 electorates. Most of them are in regions where a significant share of the population is employed in male-dominated industries, especially mining and agriculture. In the Queensland electorate of Flynn, which spans inland from Gladstone, there are 2380 (or 4 per cent) more males than females, which is the largest gender gap in favour of men of any electorate. In the giant West Australian electorate of Durak, which includes the iron ore mining hub of Pilbara, there are about 2 per cent more men than women. But seats with male majorities are also found in the heart of our biggest cities. In the electorate of Sydney, men outnumber women by nearly 6000, while there are 1436 more males enrolled than females in the seat of Melbourne. The largest gender gap favouring women is in the seat of Fisher, north of Brisbane, where there are 7365 more female voters than males. Loading The past two federal elections have been marked by the success of female 'teal' independents in affluent electorates previously considered Liberal Party heartland. Election role data shows most the seats where teal candidates prevailed have a significant female majority, especially Goldstein in Melbourne, held by Zoe Daniel (6489 more women than men), Warringah in Sydney, held by Zali Steggall (4290 more women than men) and Mackellar, held by Sophie Scamps (4130 more women than men). Number of voters per electorate The average number of voters per federal electorate has reached 120,650 – an all-time high. But there are marked variations in the number of voters in seats across the nation. That's because the Australian Constitution, adopted in 1901, stipulates that each 'original state' must have at least five seats in the House of Representatives. Patterns of population growth since federation mean that electorates in the smallest state, Tasmania, have far fewer voters than the national average. (In 1901, Tasmania accounted for nearly 5 per cent of the national population, but that share has shrunk to about 2 per cent). The two electorates in the sparsely populated Northern Territory also have fewer voters than the rest of the country. Election roll data shows the seat of Clark in Hobart has the lowest number of voters at 74,315, while the electorate of Lingiari in the Northern Territory has the second lowest at 76,836.
