What is luxury car tax Australia?

As another pre-emptive mining industry campaign fires up to warn the government off considering removing tax concessions to fund corporate tax cuts, it’s worth doing a reality check on the track record of industry in opposing government decisions.

It was a tax that was “one of the greatest assaults on the living standards of Western Australians I have ever seen in the history of Federation”, one Liberal senator Liberal senator said; one that demonstrated “all of the morality of carpetbaggers and burglars”. Another Liberal senator declared it would “have disastrous consequences for our sovereign risk profile”. “Our reputation has gone down the drain because of this. Every single large project boardroom is saying: ‘What is happening in Australia’?”

And it was “bleeding obvious” that the tax would be passed on to Western Australian consumers, another Liberal said.

It was the removal of the condensate excise exemption in 2008, introduced in the Rudd government’s first budget. As a kind of warm-up act to the hysteria of the mining tax, an alliance of The Australian, resources company Woodside and Coalition senators was formed to attack the removal of a generous 1970s exemption designed to encourage offshore petroleum exploration. The Australian boasted about its role in alerting the world to the impact on consumers. And in August, when the relevant bill was before the Senate, Woodside chief Don Voelte began an epic period of whingeing that wouldn’t cease until he left Woodside for the warm embrace of Kerry Stokes several years later.

“Woodside must pass on increased costs, ” Voelte piously intoned. “The idea that we can somehow afford this cost into our business is unrealistic. This unexpected new tax is no different to any other cost.” A few months later Woodside unveiled a record profit for 2008, up 70% on 2007.

The passing-on of the tax was an odd thing, too. Domestic gas prices did rise in Western Australia, but not because of the condensate excise: in June 2008, Apache Energy’s pipeline on Varanus Island blew up, causing a huge spike in WA gas prices. Prices fell when supply was restored, but thereafter began a slow but steady rise and eventually reached double those of domestic gas supplies in the eastern states. Were Voelte and The Australian right? The WA Parliament held an inquiry into gas prices in 2011.