Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to support my colleagues on this side of the Senate in opposing the luxury car tax and make a few short contributions, because most of the arguments have been put very well, including by Senator Macdonald and Senator Boswell, the two previous speakers. I want to highlight the concerns I have, particularly for small businesspeople in and around Tasmania. This so-called luxury car tax will put up the tax and will put up the costs, which will make it harder for small businesses to operate and do well. We have some very rugged and rural parts in areas of Tasmania such as the central highlands, northern Midlands, west coast and east coast, where small businesspeople need four-wheel drive vehicles. I am thinking of the builders, tradesmen, electricians, plumbers, contractors and the like who operate in and around these rural and regional parts of Tasmania, and indeed in the cities and the towns of Tasmania. They are going to be under increased pressure as a result of this ridiculous proposal to increase the tax. You have the farmers and the farming communities who are going to be directly affected in an adverse way. Tourism has been mentioned. The tourism industry in Tasmania is particularly important not only in the capital cities but throughout the state. There is a whole range of people, and in particular small businesses, that are going to cop it in the neck.

Another contribution I wanted to make relates to the actual car dealers themselves who have not been referred to much during this debate. The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries have put forward a lot of good information, including monthly figures on the number of vehicles sold in Australia and the like. The fact is that their members—and I am going to name the one that I know in Launceston, whom I have talked to about this: Bruce Stevenson Toyota—employ hard-working Launcestonians, hard-working Tasmanians. The tax will make it harder for them. It has ramifications across the board.

When this government wants to increase the tax, there are ramifications. As Senator Macdonald said, they have a $22 billion surplus. Why do they want to do it? Why do they want to increase this tax? As was noted in the Senate report put down just last week, this tax would also be inflationary. These are the concerns that I have. It is not about BMWs, Porsches, Audis and those sorts of vehicles; this luxury car tax will hurt—and I am going to name it—the Toyota LandCruiser, the best-selling so-called luxury car. Other targeted vehicles include the Mitsubishi Pajero; the Nissan Patrol; the Chrysler Voyager; the Toyota Tarago, which is a people mover; and the Volkswagen Multivan. Those are a few, and most are working vehicles; they are family vehicles and hardly the choice of transport for the idle rich, which is exactly what this government is trying to paint the opposition into accepting. We will not accept that.

The tax will cost jobs; it will put up prices; and with the unemployment rate rising it could not come at a worse time. That is my contribution. I do not for one minute accept the government’s proposition. I stand with my colleague senators on this side of the chamber to oppose it wholeheartedly.