From the article “Third, the 38c/litre freeze on excise in 2001 has kept petrol prices artificially low. It should be lifted and the money spent on public transport.”
“Drivers and car makers also need carrots. “
Thawing out the excise freeze will increase the price of fuel and thus the running cost of cars.

That is no “carrot” for drivers or car manufacturers.

Make your mind up Lynne which one you want but I only hope any increase in fuel costs through higher taxes is reinvested into improving the road infrastructure rather than being squandered on a public transport system which is used 2 hours a day (peak) and runs empty the rest of the time, employing the otherwise indolent and incompetent in a public sheltered workshop.

As for “Our antiquated fringe benefits tax system” is an elaborate system which if the numbers ever came out, the full cost of calculating the tax exceeds the value generated.

The best thing to do with FBT would be to abolish it completely.

“There is no doubt these initiatives would wipe out the local market for big old-fashioned cars so a major overhaul will be necessary.”

I recall the Button plan back in the 1980’s. the only outcome to that plan was the closure of Nissan manufacturing and a brief shot-gun marriage between GM and Toyota where GM got taken from several millions.

Better the government saved all the tax payers money and withdrew from pretending they know what they are doing. Cut the subsidies and arrangements which hold up defunct manufacturers because of pressure from the auto manufacturers and their unions and let “nature” take its course. We would end up paying more for cars but we would have more unneeded “taxes” left in our pockets, instead of being squandered, in our name, on manufacturers subsidies.

One problem, Australia’s domestic market is unsuited to being supported by multiple local car manufacturers. The politicians like to fiddle with the economic process without understanding the full implication of what all the economic knobs do.

Leave the market alone and it will fix itself.

*Better the government saved all the tax payers money and withdrew from pretending they know what they are doing.*

Well exactly. Politicians, fiddling with billions of taxpayers
dollars, as they think they actually know what they are doing,
is usually a disaster.

Better to get rid of payroll tax, so that industry can be a bit
more competitive.

If Eastern Australia is concerned about peak oil, you are free
to build a gas pipeline from the NW shelf to Sydney. That will
keep all of you and your grandkids going for their lives. Who
knows what technology will be invented in the next 20 years.

Right now, we are flogging off alot of that gas to Asia, as
they are prepared to make a commitment. Chilling it down to
160 deg takes some doing. You are free to buy the stuff.
Or is gas just too inconvenient for you?

As Col Rouge put it so well, leave the market alone and it will fix itself. YES! What a great time to allow the industry to restructure when there are labour shortages. How absolutely expedient it would be, to retain the effective $15,000 tax revenue per Australian made car with 1.3 million population per manufacturing plant (assuming 20 per cent market penetration as at present).

Mr Rudd, dont meddle with my money. Your predecessors had the opportunity and it is probably too late to fix it now even if you think you could.

Leave the market alone and it will fix itself, Col ROuge?!? Right, just like the deregulated financial services industry is 'fixing itself' by flushing billions of superannuation $s down the stockmarket loo. Just like cigarette companies fixed the health problems of their products. Just like petrol companies quickly owned up to IQ impact of lead in petrol, instead of fighting it for twenty years.. what la-la land are you dialing in from? (my bet is the Institute for Public Affairs).

Liam “what la-la land are you dialing in from”

Liam, if you wish to challenge my view you are entitled to do so.

Merely using low sarcasm will not work on me.

I believe any healthy industry can stand on its own merits.

I believe a healthy business does not need government subsidy.

The merits of a society where everything is determined by government subsidy and government planning can be readily reviewed in the economic miracles of USSR, Poland, Rumania and every other centrally planned, government regulated economy.

I would note, that regulatory environment was so effective, people starved to death and the only reason the world did not know was because the media was as controlled by government.

Cherry pick shortcomings in a libertarian capitalist economy and for each, I will identify 10 deficiencies in the collectivist model.

“billions of superannuation $s down the stockmarket loo”

and on what price do you base that decline?

A week previous?

6 months previous?

Go back 2 years and you will find the super-funds are well ahead of leaving the cash in a savings account.

A hundred times better performing than any of Lenin or Stalin’s 5 year plans.

The cigarette companies have been revealed.

Leaded petrol, your poorly reasoned missive is possibly a negative side-effect of Leaded petrol.

If you don’t like the political economics I happen to subscribe to, you are free to start the queue of people waiting to get into North Korea.

Unfortunately, the queue trying to climb over the Berlin wall into East Germany never existed, they were all trying to escape the Eric Honeckers “government regulated workers utopia”

Before you rant on about capitalist environmental issues, go read one of the websites concerning the Aral Sea.

I recall USA had its Five Mile Island. USSR had Chernobyl.

Want to make a bet to which was the bigger disaster?

If you want to debate the real issues please return.

If you just want to rant about la-la-land and behave like an emotional cripple, phone the suicide help line.

If you want to have electric vehicles on our streets stop moaning about it and start a company to make one. Don't ask governments to get involved as the process would take too long and the result likely to be unsatisfactory, to say nothing of the cost.