Australia is a big country. Local people and business need affordable fuel. Affordable fuel would reinvigorate local tourism. Australians could afford to travel on holidays in their own country. International tourists would hear of cheap fuel and visit Australia.

Petrol discount coupons once reinvigorated tourism in Italy. But to hell with coupons just for tourists.

Fuel for vehicles in Australia could be made cheaper if Australian gas cost the same at the bowser as the export cost. And add excise reasonable to motorists.

Perhaps cost of gas locally could be brought right down if motorists stood up and demanded a fair go.
A fair go is an Australian value is it not?

If Victoria is going to approve gas exploration then the State of Victoria could stand up and say no more gas exploration and drilling unless gas is made available to Australians at the same price it is exported for.

Government of Australia take notice.
We can all use the roads less or stay at home and holiday overseas if high cost of fuel continues. In fact stay at home is occurring right now for many many people. Many out of town farmers cannot even afford to get to town these days, some are sharing transport.

Surely government can understand tax revenue would increase if lower fuel cost would allow tourism and other business to get back to business and more employment by having affordable fuel.

Why buy costly new imported electric vehicles with batteries that wear out when existing vehicle conversion to affordable clean gas could sustainably drive the nation forward?

Ideology from regressives in Labour/Greens and Liberal will not allow commonsense to prevail. Look at how their idiotic push for renewables has made electricity unaffordable and unreliable.

I agree, Runner
But knowing that surely it is possible to establish a way to step over the top of it.

I can't agree that the cost of fuel is a major deterrent to driving to a local tourism destination for a holiday.

To give an example, let's do some costings:
Last time I filled up, which was last weekend, I paid about $1.25/L and this was in a rural area about 250kms from Brisbane. Most cars do more than 10km/L at highway speeds which means it costs less than $125 per 1000km at the last price I paid for fuel. In a car this efficient, if someone lived in Melbourne (assuming that petrol there is about the same price) they could do a round trip to any town in the state for less than $200. This $200 would even cover a few 100kms of extra mileage for driving around the local area once you've got there.
So for a short break holiday with a bit of luxury, such as a three long day weekend where you stayed in bed and breakfast for 2 nights and ate out your evening meal at restaurants with a few daytime activities such as a wine tours, day-spa/massage etc, your fuel costs would be a minor part of the total spend.

thinkabit,

What would be the cost of petrol from Melbourne to Cairns with the wife and kids for Christmas holidays on the Great Barier Reef?

Or say from Sydney to Ayres Rock via Adelaide with the family?

And then there are people who have to travel 200 k plus a day to go to work and back.

JF Aus: You ask "What would be the cost of petrol from Melbourne to Cairns with the wife and kids for Christmas holidays on the Great Barier Reef?".

Well a quick search on the Internet and a bit of maths gives us the answer:

After typing in "distance Melbourne to Cairns" into Google the 2nd top result tells me that it is 2842km by driving. Doubling this for the round trip gives 5700km (rounding up to closest 100). Multiplying by the $125/1000km = $0.125/km figure I was using in the previous post gives $712.50. (Though admittedly it might be a bit more than this since fuel is more expensive in the regional areas but if this really was a concern of yours you could take some jerry cans filled at cheaper city price).

Now, $712.50 seems like a lot- but here's the rub, to drive with kids from Melbourne to Cairns return it will take at least 8 days to do it safely with some comfort. In other words you will be paying for food and accommodation for the family for seven nights, which will cost you some hundreds of dollars (most likely more than the cost of fuel if you eat-out and stay in building accommodation instead of camping). Then once you get to Cairns you will be spending even more money on accommodation, food and entertainment/activities, probably some thousands of dollars (I'm assuming that you would want to stay for at least a weak- rather than get there and turn back straight back home). All-up the fuel cost will still be a minor component of the total cost.

But besides this: there is something that needs to be asked. Why the hell would you drive when you can fly? You would save the money spent on food/accommodation on the way and more importantly save at least 6 days of your time.

[TBC]

Runner knows nothing!

[continuation from above]

Lastly, another very important point that needs to be made is that in your original post you are specifically referring to LOCAL TOURISM. There is no-way I would consider Melbourne to Cairns in this category, rather I would say it is interstate domestic tourism. For me local tourism would be something that you can drive to comfortably/leisurely within a day. For example, say you lived in Brisbane then local tourism would be South-East Queensland and a bit of Northern NSW (say down to Byron Bay)- but even this is really pushing the limits of what I would call "local".

What you're effectively asking for is that someone like me who lives in SE-Qld pay through my tax for the holidays of someone living 1000s of km away interstate in Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, etc. Why would this ever by a good idea from my perspective? If anything if I was only interested in the my local economy and wanted people to holiday locally then logically I would want he opposite of what you propose- ie: that fuel for non-commercial use is taxed higher so that it forces people to stay in my local region when they go on holidays and also implement a whooping great big tax on overseas travel. (BY-THE-WAY: I don't support either of these taxes, I'm just saying that if my goal was to achieve your desired outcome of local tourism then this is would be a step in that direction.)

Oh are people still holidaying at the Great Barrier reef? I was taught at school in the 1970's that it would be finished by now!

JF any thinking person does know that the regressives have stuffed this nation. The only real solution is to drain the swamp and with so many dumbed so these days its unlikely. I hope desperately for my grandkids sake that I am wrong.

thinkabit more.

Each seat for a family on an airplane costs money, too much generally. Prohibitive. No holiday stay at home.

Going by road is part of the holiday, a great holiday, and provides business and employment for communities along the way.

JF Aus: Do you have any idea how cheap airlines are?

I just had a look, I can get a Melbourne-Cairns return flight this week and it cost less than $500. In other words you can fly a family of four for less than two grand! Two grand is amazingly cheap considering that you will be there the same day!

To show you just how cheap that is let's work through an example scenario:
Let's say you're a Melbournian on a very low adult age of $20 a week after tax and you want to fly your family on your yearly holiday to Cairns. So you need to save: $2000/52 per week which is about $40/wk. In other words, all you have to is less than 2hrs of works per week or equivalently, less than 24 mins a day (assuming you're working a 5 day week).
So do people have 24 mins a day spare to pay for their family's trip? Well consider this: 24 mins is less than what many people spend reading and posting comments on internet forums like this or on twitter a day. It is less than most people spend watching TV a day (indeed, the time spent just on the TV ads alone per day is more than this for many people). It is way less than what many people spend mucking around on their phone. ...etc...

If you don't think that $500 for a return flight from Melbourne to Cairns is exceptional value, then I SUGGEST YOU WALK IT and see how much time and money it costs you. Remember, it is only over a mere 200 years ago that that was the only available of mode of travel in Australia. In general, travel costs over the last hundred years (especially the last few decades) have decreased astoundingly. And with future technology it will most likely continue to decrease in cost and decrease in transit time (technology such as extreme speed trains such as hyperloop).

I got a cheap fare with Tiger about 3 weeks ago and it was a good service - Brisbane to Sydney for $55, it cost me about the same in fuel, tolls and fares to get to Brisbane airport from the suburbs before my flight, and to where I was going using Sydney Trains when my flight arrived.

thinkabit a lot more but not too much.

You mention cheap airlines. Take a look at what Armchair Critic has to say about cost of getting to airports and back again.

As for what is local and domestic, think about domestic airport terminals that can take you from wsay Sydney to Perth.
Anyway in my opening comment to this thread I was referring to Australia being as big country and need for affordable fuel to travel.

High speed trains also miss providing business to motels and food outlets and repairers along road routes.

But I accept you view, thinkabit. I now cledarly see there are some people who can afford and seek to travel by air and that the cost of petrol for cars in this big country is ok.

When my son was injured some time back he had 6 weeks recuperation, but was not allowed to drive, fly or travel unaccompanied for the first 4 weeks.

I drove from SE Qld to Nowra to pick him up in my Triumph TR8, 4.6L 300 BHP convertible. The 2900 kilometres round trip down the new England highway, bypassing Sydney each way was a joy, which he also enjoyed.

Public transport would have involved $50 of taxi at each end, a train at each end, a long slow one south from Sydney, & would have been far from a joy.

At a smidgen over 10L/100Km total cost was $377 for fuel, & perhaps $40 for coffee & a snack on the way.

He flew back, which took slightly longer door to door than driving, & he complained was a horrible way to spend a day.

Long distance rail is a dearer than flying so although more pleasant you have to wonder why you don't get to take home the rail carriage, when you have paid enough to have bought the thing, not just rent a seat.

Travel by yacht is the only way to go. Like the snail you carry your home with you, your clean underwear is still in it's usual draw, when ever you need it, & you'll see a hell of a lot more than from thirty thousand feet. Oh that is one kind of wind power that makes sense.

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