Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I know there are a lot of opinions about what is fair and what is unfair when it comes to tax arrangements, but the fuel excise arrangements have been a longstanding line of revenue that essentially goes to fund states' and territories' road infrastructure. You can look through the tax arrangements across government to see where revenue raised then goes on to deliver services and infrastructure. So that is an important reason behind the fuel excise. Under those arrangements, there are standard indexation arrangements that are applied, which come into effect, but we also need to ensure that the transport infrastructure—the roads and services that are needed—can be funded.

So they're the arrangements that are in place. We haven't changed them. The last reduction, I think, ended in September 2022, when the former Liberal government had legislated for those arrangements to end. Whilst a lot of people come forward with ideas about where you could cut taxes or reduce revenue to government, there's also an increasing need to provide services and make investments across government. The top five areas, of course, are: dealing with the increasing interest charges on the debt that we inherited; aged care; NDIS; defence; and health. Those are very fast-growing areas of government, and governments need to collect revenue to fund those. If we don't collect it then you have to start cutting back on those services, and I can't see, in any of those five areas, opportunities to cut investments.