Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

You would, Senator Williams—you would have a strike on your hands for occupational health and safety standards, because everybody today should be providing air conditioning for their employees. It is about the question of what we now consider to be a luxury. Do we actually consider airbags to be a luxury? Do we consider ABS to be a luxury? Do we consider those flashing lights called indicators, rather than those old hand signals, to be a luxury? Under the CPIMV we would still have those old hand signals. Remember the yellow hand—I am showing my age now—that you would push out the window? If the hand was straight up you were stopping and if it was horizontal you were turning right. Even that hand signal at the time was innovative and a luxury in itself, because it allowed you not to have to put your own hand at risk as you had a mechanical substitute. Now we have these wonderful innovations—flashing lights—that are called indicators. Of course they are luxuries, so the Treasury CPIMV modelling says that these are luxury factors that should not be taken into account for the purposes of the luxury car tax threshold.

I say to my good friend Senator Xenophon and those on the crossbenches: consider what Treasury is telling you from time to time. Next it will be that having a handbrake is a luxury. I understand that in the past they used to just put a chock under the wheel; you would carry a brick in the back of the car. But now there is the innovation of a handbrake, and so we could go on. Pneumatic tyres—what a great luxury that was! Of course as time goes by cars will improve.

Something that was of great concern to opposition senators has been confirmed—that is, this luxury car tax is a tax on innovation and a tax on road safety. Having an airbag in the car is seen by most people now as standard. But according to Senator Cameron—of course if he were in the car there would be an extra airbag, but I am not sure that that would necessarily add to road safety—