That was a very bad idea for the Australian government to cut the excise tax on petrol by 26%. The country itself runs on taxes collected and the less consumers pay in taxes, the LOWER a standard of living the country overall will ultimately experience.
Take Bahamas for example where there is no sales tax on anything ..and if you work there as a resident, you pay no income tax either. All taxes collected are from tourism instead.
But what Bahamas DOES NOT have, is a decent standard of living across the island chain. There is no 9-11 service to call on your phone when you need a cop because 9-11 services does not exist, which means there's no 9-11 dispatcher to talk to when you need a firetruck or an ambulance.
There are no paved roads anywhere in Bahamas that are newer than what was first constructed by the Brits in the 1950s and everyone who lives there lives in a wooden shack that's covered with barn roofing tin. The standard of living in Bahamas which is a Tax Haven for rich people, is at a Third World standard at best.
Look at the USA as another example. Americans HATE paying taxes and when you travel coast to coast by car in the USA, it becomes very evident very quickly that very little tax money is taken in by the State and Federal government as a result.
No matter where you look in the USA, all the naked eye can see in America is a crumbling infrastructure, shittty roads and walled communities where the rich people live among the poor. There are no such places in America where only the rich live, but instead the country looks like a low-class country where pockets of wealthy people live in gated communities.
THAT is what zero or VERY LOW taxation does to a country; it lowers the standard of living for everyone coast to coast because the country cannot run on the illusion of white picket fences and jars of milk and honey.
Up the road back in Australia, the shitte is going to hit the fan when the government will want their lost tax revenues shored-up by the taxpayers before long and if you think you're listening to a lot of bit*ching and complaining now about high petrol prices, you ain't heard anything yet.
When the Australian government decides that the free American-style ride is over and the tax man comes a calling, all that money that got saved will now be given back to the government and they'll want it NOW, not tomorrow.
Cutting taxes is a very bad idea, no matter what the circumstance.
