[Peakoil] [Peakoil-announce] Federal budget submission

[Keith Thomas]

Here are six suggestions:

1. As there is an emergency looming, we need serious national  
legislation to override State/Territory pork barrelling. For example,  
the federal housing minister needs the power to require State and local  
government to impose sensible controls on suburban sprawl (see the DVD  
"The End of Suburbia"). There is massive corruption and insider trading  
in real estate trading/speculation, which could be stopped by federal  
intervention (rules without exemptions for mates).

2. With this legislation abolish vehicle registration fees (except for  
a nominal amount of, say, $25.00 to cover the administrative costs of  
administering vehicle registration) and add a tax on petrol, LPG and  
diesel fuel to compensate. That is, the change should be revenue  
neutral.

3. Here's an easy one. All "mileage" allowances paid to Commonwealth  
public servants, people travelling on Commonwealth business, business  
tax concessions etc. to be based on a modest 4-cylinder 1500cc vehicle.  
If anyone chooses to use a larger vehicle, that's their problem. If a  
tradesman says he needs his 4WD for business, or a hire car owner says  
he needs his limousine - that's fine, but for  
taxation/mileage/reimbursement purposes, it will be a 4-cylinder  
1500cc.

4. All MPs to be given a 4 cylinder 1500cc and if they need a bigger  
car to accommodate their egos, they can pay for it out of their  
allowances.

5. I have no idea what taxation benefits there are for land clearing,  
but they should stop.

6. All future Productivity Commission inquiries to take into account  
environmental externalities. I mention this because the Commission come  
under the Treasurer and all their past inquiries have treated oil as  
inexhaustible and the environment as a free dump.

Anyone else like to jump in? Post them here and they may seed further  
thoughts among the ACT peak oil brain trust.
--------------------------------------------
Keith Thomas
www.evfit.com
--------------------------------------------
On 31/12/2007, at 12:58 PM, Alex Pollard wrote:

Hi folks,

The Treasurer Wayne Swan has called for submissions regarding the  
coming budget.

http://www.aspo-australia.org.au/latest/swan-calls-for-budget- 
submissions.html

ACT Peak Oil will be making a submission. Please send any ideas you  
have by
Jan 9 to Jenny Goldie <jgoldie at snowy.net.au> and myself at
alex-po at trevbus.org, or reply to this message to send an email to the
discussion list.

It would be nice to see our Senate oil inquiry submission put into  
action:

http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/rrat_ctte/oil_supply/ 
submissions/sub116.pdf

eg Just abolishing the FBT concession for car use would save taxpayers  
$1
billion annually - or it could be spent on sustainable transport  
infrastructure.

Cheers,

Alex
O4O4873828

ACT Peak Oil
http://act-peakoil.org

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