I think a broader consequence of a reduction in fuel consumption will be the reduction in bitumen production and that's going to knock on to less roads, less quarries, etc. What do they do with the petroleum by products like petrol itself in that situation ... power stations?
Electric cars are breaking our roads ?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-...ralia-roads-reform-road-user-charging/9235564
I think thats a pretty easy fix, once electric cars hit a certain number on the road the taxes just need to be changed to include them.
But, electric cars also provide financial and non financial benefits to other Australia, which may be worth a lot more than the road tax.
For example
1, Reduced demand for oil based fuel reduces the cost of fuel for other users.
2, Lower air pollution in our cities improves health and lowers the health care costs
3, Using Australian sourced fuel eg Coal, gas and renewables increases fuel security and lowers the trade deficit compared to imported fuels.
these and other benefits may totally offset the 50% lower road tax paid, and may at least justify not taxing the electric car until it becomes a major user of the roads.
Nuance Collector, Imagine how all the facts that you've quoted will play out in the visceral pressure cooker of the easily bought comments of the Shock Jockery by aready entrenched players who are set to lose.
The importance of cubic inches of displacment to ones thinking are inversely proportional an IQ's capacity to imagine National betterment....
I'm no fan of petrol but to be fair there's a pretty substantial tax on the stuff which raises far more revenue that that used to maintain roads. So it could reasonably be argued that everyone who buys petrol is paying at least part of the costs it imposes on society.Maybe we should point out that currently petrol car owners are not covering any of the costs related to the air pollution they are generating and disposing of into the local environment for free that contributes to higher health care costs.
I'm no fan of petrol but to be fair there's a pretty substantial tax on the stuff which raises far more revenue that that used to maintain roads.
At $175 per tonne of CO2 (not including GST on the excise) the rate of tax on petrol at present is already far higher than anyone seriously proposes apply to coal or gas.
Not according to the article posted by Sir Rump that I was commenting on.
According to that article the Fuel excise only covers a little under 50% of roads expenditure.
The fuel excise is used to cover the roads being maintained and built.
Any carbon tax would be in addition to the fuel excise, So if petrol owners wanted the system to be fair, they should be covering all three separate issues.
1, there part of the road maintenance
2, there part of the health care costs
3, their C02 emissions.
If only coal has a carbon tax, then that is a tax being paid by EV owners that petrol cars are avoiding.
Are there not other taxes associated with car ownership? Registration, toll roads, speeding fines etc.
I’m no expert on road funding .
Local roads are funded by councils (ratepayers) and they don’t get the $ from fuel excise.
Some other roads are funded by the states. They get registration, traffic fines etc but not excuse.
So of the $16 billion or so that is collected as fuel excise that’s only funding roads to the extent that the Australian government is spending it.
A quick Google search finds that infrastructure spending has ranged from $3.2 to $7.2 billion a year over the past decade or so and that 78% of that is on roads. That’s a very long way short of what’s collected as fuel excise.
Someone might have better figures than I’ve found, I might be missing something, but I can’t find anything to show that the Australian Government is spending all $16 billion a year on roads at least not consistently.
It was once the case that fuel excise was linked directly to road funding but that was ended decades ago so it’s a political decision how it gets spent.
The states used to levy fuel franchise fees until the High Court of Australia in Ha v New South Wales (1997) ruled that a licence fee based on the value of tobacco was unconstitutional, as it was an excise tax that only the Commonwealth can levy. The ruling brought into doubt the revenues of the states. In consequence, the federal government introduced a fuel excise tax and gave the revenue to the states.
This man seems to actually have a vision for the future.Something that will interest a few people here no doubt.
This man seems to actually have a vision for the future.
Not much more to say really but he's showing the deficiencies in many others pretty clearly if he can make things work (Eg Whyalla steelworks) that others can't.
Let's hope something comes from his latest ideas.
VC has just cancelled his Tesla order.
No, I want my model 3, asap.
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