Hard earned tax dollars fixing roads! lol, pretty unheard of actually.Our general taxes don't do roads, what does out roads. or is supposed to do our roads, is the incredible amount of tax we pay on fuel. If the fed gov't alone took its tax excise off, and not even thinking about the GST, our Unleaded would be about 80 cents to $1 a litre. Then you have state taxes, NSW has about 3 of them one is the 3x3 tax and it is specifically for State Roads, yet it doesn't do anything. On top of that we also have the fed gov't GST which is 10% of the overall price of everything. Our fuel is taxed so heavely it isn't funny.
About 20 years ago, the last time we had a federal labour and state labour gov't in power there was a huge political buck pass happening in NSW at least. There were signs on roads by the fed gov't, the state go'vt, and the local councils saying this road is fed, sometimes state gov't responsibilty. Then the fed and state gov'ts would put up signs blaming someone else for it. There were pot holes that would swallow a Mini Cooper S. Yes I am serious.
My local council, idiots that they are, have only just last week repaved a road that had nothing at all wrong with it, yet some locals have been asking for years to get a sealed section so their school bus doesn't have to travel on a pretty bad dirt road.
Our taxes are on a tiered system, the ore you earn the more you theoretically pay. The lowest level is about 20 or something cents in the dollar, the middle level is about 33 cents in the dollar, and the highest level is about 40 cents in the dollar (don't quote me on that). I think the OECD commission has stated that Australia is one of the heaviest taxed countries in the developed world. You know why the people pay so much tax, cause our government doesn't tax Overseas businesses all that much, not I'm not talking about cars either. If they would tax them a bit more they could halve the tax rates the Australian people pay.
