Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Seriously, I note the contribution made by my colleague. As he rightly pointed out, there is nothing in the Prime Minister’s statement about petrol prices, something which I have railed against in this parliament on many occasions. Indeed, as late as the last sitting fortnight we had a debate on a separate issue from the energy policy paper on fuel and I made a number of what I think were quite salient points about that, particularly the impact of fuel prices on people living in rural and remote Australia and, most particularly, the impact of the effect of a tax on a tax, the GST, and how it disproportionately impacts on people who live in the bush and pay the highest price for fuel and therefore pay a higher proportion of their fuel price in GST. That is something that I think this parliament needs to address. I know I have spoken to my colleague about this. He does not accept this argument, by the way, and a lot of people do not. But I think there is a way to deal with this, and that is to cap the GST at the average of capital city prices so that people all over Australia pay the same GST on fuel and people in the bush are not disadvantaged because of where they live. I think it is an entirely appropriate course to follow, and I commend others involved in this debate to take it up. I also argue—and, again, my colleague probably does not agree with me but nevertheless it is something I am very concerned about—

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