Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Public Accountability and Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the amendment put forward by the member for Hunter to the Fuel Tax Bill 2006. The fuel tax legislation provides a single system of fuel tax and associated credits but overlooks the need for nation building and ignores the immediate needs of motorists and middle Australia. The government ought to be taking action to reduce our dependency on foreign oil, it ought to be taking action to take us in the direction of cleaner, more environmentally responsible fuels, and it should be taking action to develop the Australian fuels industry.

With some assistance from the Parliamentary Library, I have put together some data about the Commonwealth revenue from the GST on petrol and excise since the introduction of the GST in 2000. Honourable members might recall that, in the lead-up to the introduction of the GST, the government promised that motorists would not be worse off as a result of its introduction and that petrol taxes would not increase. Although there is no data on GST revenue collected directly from petrol sales, we are able to make reliable estimates based on petrol sales information and average petrol prices. The information which I have available to me comes from the Australian Petroleum Statistics from the Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources, the average retail prices of selected items from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, FUELtrac Pty Ltd, the final budget outcome and Budget Paper No. 1: Budget Strategy and Outlook 2006-07. That collection of statistics shows that excise has remained relatively constant during the period 2000-01 to the present. Back in 2000-01 the Commonwealth take through petrol excise was around $6.8 billion and rose to $7 billion, then to $7.2 billion and then to $7.4 billion. In fact, it has tapered off in the last couple of years and is back to $7.3 billion and $7.2 billion. What has occurred is that the GST take has increased dramatically. In 2001-02, it was $1.4 billion, and it has gone through $1.5 billion, $1.6 billion and $1.8 billion and, for 2005-06, is estimated to be $2.1 billion—that is to say, a 50 per cent increase since 2001-02.

Members might ask: is this increased Commonwealth petrol tax take due to more kilometres being travelled? The answer is no; the excise side is constant, even declining. It may be that motorists may be reducing the amount of kilometres travelled in response to the higher petrol prices they are being required to pay. But in fact we can see that the government has been able to rake in a massive $2.1 billion in GST petrol take estimated for 2005-06—as I said, a 50 per cent increase on that which was occurring back in 2001-02.

We have had the budget night tax giveaway, but the government has not told us what it is collecting in extra petrol taxes, bracket creep, GST and the like. Every time the price of petrol goes up, on the inside the Prime Minister smiles and the Treasurer smirks. On the outside they are wringing their hands and saying, ‘We’re so sorry, there’s nothing we can do,’ but on the inside they are smiling and counting all those extra petrol tax dollars that they are trousering. They can use those dollars either to convince us of what good economic managers they are or for election bribes.

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