Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

or a Rolls-Royce, indeed, that many in the cities would have. But these are essential vehicles. I have to declare an interest here of course. I was driving a Nissan Patrol vehicle on this 4,000-kilometre journey, and it is one of the vehicles that will cost $1,000 to $1,500 more should this bill become law.

If people out in those areas want to take their kids to the doctor—that is, if they are able to do it; if the kid happens fortuitously to be sick on the fortnight that the flying doctor happens to be coming into town—then they cannot get there very often in a Holden or some other ordinary vehicle. They need a four-wheel-drive vehicle, the sort of vehicle that the Labor Party is calling a ‘luxury’ vehicle. If you drive on those roads anywhere after 4.30 pm and you do not have a bulbar, it is almost tantamount to thinking about committing suicide. The wildlife in those areas at dusk is a danger and the way to keep yourself, your family and all those you love safe is to get a vehicle that does have some protection against wildlife on the roads and against the holes in the dirt roads. These vehicles in those parts of the world are not a luxury; they are essential.

I am told that there were about 30,000 four-wheel-drives sold in the year 2007. They comprised not just the Nissan Patrol, which I have mentioned, but the Toyota LandCruiser, a vehicle that is synonymous with the Australian bush. They also included other four-wheel-drives by other car manufacturers—the Mitsubishi Pajero, the Ford Territory, the Toyota Prado, as well as the LandCruiser and the Nissan Patrol. These are the sorts of vehicles you see out in country Australia. These are the sorts of vehicles that this particular bill will attack.

I appreciate that commercial vehicles are not part of the tax—they have been previously exempted—but many of the vehicles that you see out in these areas are passenger vehicles that families particularly—and, I might say, mothers—use to take their children to school and to the doctor, and to get around. So there were 30,000 sold in 2007. If they were all subject to the luxury car tax, that would provide something like $50 million of the $130 million the government hopes to grab as a tax this year, and I would venture to say that a large proportion of those 30,000 four-wheel-drive vehicles are vehicles purchased by those Australians who do not live in the capital cities.

Again, this Labor government—typical of all Labor governments—is attacking country people. While I was out driving around in the north-west, I saw that Mr Rudd announced for the hardworking public servants who live in Canberra an increase of $1,400 a week in their pay packets. The Labor government, whilst urging restraint everywhere else, gives the top public servants an increase of $1,400 in their pay packets. How do we pay for that, one might ask? Perhaps we get those silly buggers that live out in the bush to pay an extra $1,200 to $1,500 for their four-wheel-drive motor vehicles! That would give them the money to enable them to pay senior public servants in Canberra an extra $1,400 a week. You have got to ask yourself: what does this say about this high-taxing Labor government?

I ask of the Greens: why do they hate the bush? They have some influence here in what bills are allowed through the parliament and what are not. I read in the paper that they have done a deal with the government on imported vehicles that have less fuel efficiency. I do not know the details of that; I can only go on what is written in the paper. I see Senator Milne is sitting there and perhaps she will be able to tell us what deal she has done with the Labor Party yet again. I ask Senator Milne: why could you not have done the same sort of deal for people who live in the country, people who live 4,000 and 5,000 kilometres from the capital city? These are people who only get a doctor once a fortnight when the flying doctor comes in, people who drive on gravel roads, people whose hospitals are shut down by state Labor governments. These are people who provide the wealth for our country, the food that we eat, the clothes that we wear and the minerals that make Australia such a prosperous country at the moment. Why don’t we help them? So I ask the Greens: if you are going to do a deal with this dealing government, why not help people from rural and regional Australia? Why not help those who labour away in the more remote areas under difficult circumstances? Why didn’t you help them rather than looking after the privileged who might live in the leafy suburbs of the capital cities and drive these fuel-efficient vehicles? If you take the fuel-efficient vehicles out where I have been in the last couple of weeks they would probably rattle apart in a small period of time. But no, this government—and it seems the Greens—are not interested in country people—in those who must have four-wheel-drive vehicles as an essential part of their lives. This government—with, it seems, the support of the Greens—is going to tax them again so that the privileged people in the city can have a better life.