Senator Joyce said today, "The luxury car tax is no more than a tax on working families employed in the manufacturing industry for motor vehicles of all the major Australian manufacturers. Australia produces cars over $57,180. India and China produce very cheap cars and Europe produce the dear ones, where an inelasticity of demand is present, that is, at a price tag of over $120,000.
"Why on earth is the Labor government, who say they are trying to support the Australian car manufacturing industry, placing a tax on the purchase of those same cars, so that Australians purchase cars from somewhere else.
"This arbitrary tax also works on the premise that a government will determine whether something you buy is luxury or otherwise. This is judgemental, paternalistic and intrusive on decisions that people make as an essential element of every family's freedom and budget.
"The Labor party has not followed the logic of an incremental increase in line with the CPI of the tax that they originally introduced under Prime Minister Hawke. They have not followed the definition of the same style of car that was determined by Hawke to be "luxury" when the tax first came in.
"They have foreshadowed under the Henry Review that they will be introducing taxes on other items such as artwork and jewellery and this is a step back to the social dark ages of the previous century.
"What is luxury? Are they going to look at luxury houses, luxury clothes? What bastion of left-wing luminaries are going to differentiate between what is necessity and what is luxury?
"In the process of their arbitrary renaissance of social engineering they have managed to not so much attack those people who don’t care about the money, such as where an inelasticity of demand occurs, but rather attack those who do care and therefore are responsive to price changes. In their reaction to that responsiveness, they will be disinclined to purchase cars produced by Australian manufacturing workers from an Australian manufacturing plant.
"It seems perverse that we have to rely on the conservative side of government to state the obvious. This is an attack on the Australian working family and not only what they can afford but, in the future, where they work."
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