Weather or not losing the fuel subsidy is a good or a bad thing is another story but I really get annoyed when politicians lie or think we are all fools. Anna Bligh stated yesterday “Queensland taxpayers should not have to subsidise interstate motorists – it does not represent value for taxpayers’ money.” and “The proposal by the NSW government to abolish their fuel subsidy scheme by July 1 will only make it more attractive for NSW motorists to cross the border and fill up their tanks”.

I mean come on Anna do you really think people in NSW are saying to themselves, ‘hey I need fuel I think I will go to Queensland’ and even if they did wouldn’t the GST and excise more then make up for it? Wouldn’t you rather those fund go into your revenue then your competitors?

Anna seems to think the fuel subsidy is a luxury and “bad policy”, what I think is by removing is she is breaking 2 key promises, 1. that her Government would not introduce any new taxes and 2. Andrew Fraser stated back in January before the election “Make no mistake about it. We’ll be delivering a fuel subsidy scheme. It will stay in place.”

While I can probably let the second one slide as things do change, I see the first one as pretty binding. More so when you delve into the history a bit, you see back in the day the other states decided they’d introduce a state fuel tax and it got smacked down in federal court, so the other states lobbied the federal government of the time and had the federal fuel excise increased by the amount of the now abolished fuel taxes to get around the court ruling.

The Qld Premier quite rightly said hang on we don’t want this added taxation and created the fuel subsidy to hand it back to us the people of Queensland. So you see it is a new form of taxation Anna is committing us too.

I only take issue with this in the way it was delivered, not once did Anna say you know what we just need the cash and you’ll have to lump it.. Instead she comes up with this bullshit about NSW motorists stealing our subsidy.