Australia raising gasoline tax in political gamble

Tony Abbott is a joke. History will show him as the worst PM in AU .

I said it at the start before he won and after. He is fall of B S and lied his butt off. He will 100% lose next election.

Selling off Medibank is a joke, as the Gov sets the maximum % of profit made pa. That forced the others to charge around the same amount. Any cheaper then Medibank, they are only doing it to steal the biz... If there is any cheaper.

Point is......Once its in "investors" hands, they want to make more then a banks 100% can not lose 5%pa.

Medibank made competition and John Howard bought it for a reason. That was to stop the prices surging up and up. Now the max % pa made pa, will go up and up and up.

I take it tony is just dumb, if not he is evil smart. Sell medinbank off to working Australians, then just make a new one in 3 years time. They make $5.5 billion..... But make a new Medispank, and charge less.

The carbon tax was a good idea, but badly executed. Why would you make a tax that charges big biz $5 billion dollars pa, that pays for the public's tax, that in return sees the power company's only investing $90 million pa on green energy? $5 billion dollar tax puts up $90 million dollars worth...Big W T F.

If you make a $5 billion dollar tax, you would just call it a big biz green tax. That will not push up power prices, and it will force them down within 3 years even if they do rise.

The Gov would charge big biz $5 billion pa, then buy $5 billion dollars worth of solar panels pa. The Government can run and own the power stations now. There is know need for a buyback of power plants anymore.......They are getting it all for free and can charge us 60% less. We can go green cut the cost to living, why seeing the government making billions AU wide in extra income pa. In 20 years time there would be $100 billion dollars worth of solar panels in AU $=23 million pop. Or if they make small profit and buy more..... $200 billion dollars worth within 20 years time. Millions of people already have solar 2 :).

“The impact on households will be modest, but the impact on our capacity to earn a stronger, more prosperous economy will be significant,” Cormann said.

Spoken like a true politician who learned economics by organizing his comic books and betting on horse races. Are people still so stupid that they think it is possible to tax their way to prosperity? I mean really?

By increasing the tax now, the government expects to raise an additional $19 billion over a decade.

Which means the people will be $19 billion poorer, and the government has $19 billion more to squander with their cronies. That is $19 billion which the people won't have to buy food, clothes, or to pay for housing, bravo!

I can't shed any tears for the Australians. They may have bad politicians but the tax on gasoline is very low compared to the rate in the EU where people pay more than twice what the Aussies do.

So is this tax about the environment or about the govt scooping more out of the pockets of the citizens ?

Seems to me the carbon tax wasn't about the environment and neither is this, how about they increase the tax on the super yachts, the luxury apartments, the mansions, the Ferraris, the Lamborghinis and all the other super rich mans extravagant toys.

Some people need gasoline to get to work to make money to pay their income tax where as not every man needs these flamboyant luxuries that the top elite can afford.

This shows what one-trick-ponies politicians really are: tax-and-spend. EU ones are just worse!

People hate politicians. People really hate politicians who raise taxes. But (1) what pays for the roads in Australia and (2) what pays for the roads in Australia when gas usage (i.e. hybrids and perhaps electric cars) goes down substantially along with less gas tax being collected? The USA has a real crisis with their highway trust fund and it looks like freeways might become "payways". Freeways don't just grow on trees. How do the roads and highway systems get funded in Australia?

@presto345

I can't shed any tears for the Australians. They may have bad politicians but the tax on gasoline is very low compared to the rate in the EU where people pay more than twice what the Aussies do.

Fair point, but no one else pays as much for groceries (10%+ inflation every decade), rent (numbers would make your head spin), property in general (again, ridiculous), power or water (think 10x the rates in Tokyo) like us Aussies do. Sydney takes the cake!

Sounds like a good idea! I don't think many countries will suffer as much with climate change as Australia. Taxes are economist "approved" way to stop pollution, so I don't know what the rest of you are whining about unless you are a climate change denier.

Australia is in economic trouble. When a country is in economic trouble, the politicians do stupidest things.

Indexation should never have been dropped by John Howard. Fixing it now is better late than never. The only problems are that before the election they promised not to raise fuel taxes and that they now are trying to circumvent parliament.

A good move by bad means.

it would discourage motorists from using gasoline.

For those living outside cities, in the out back. it just means less money for other things.

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