Welcome to the Nanny State sorry I mean country.
I have been back in Australia for just over a year now and its all very worrying. Our current PM affectionately known as the Fairy Ruddfather is a bit like a modern day Robin hood except he steals from pretty much anybody who earns more than 20K a year and spends it on schools, roads and bungled eco schemes. Australia has been prosperous for a long time now so the gov't is raking in tax - you get taxed on everything here. Buy a starter home or a 1 bed inner city flat for $350,000 and you will pay $15,000 (4.3%) in stamp duty move up to an average suburban house in Melbourne for $700,000 and you will be up for $38,500 (5.5%). A new BMW320i will set you back about $60,000 and you will be up for another $3000 to put it on the road almost as bad if you buy used. We are one of the highest income taxed countries in the world, it has come down in recent years but that was offset by a goods and services tax introduced 10 years ago at 10%. I think the tax on fuel represents more than half of the pump value on cigarettes its something like 80%, Alcohol 50%, liquor licensing fees are doubling this year, as mentioned earlier 33% luxury car tax in addition to GST which is also payable on transport costs associated with importation. 40% Capital gains tax if you happen to make a profit in selling property, shares or a business. You get an extra tax if you earn over the average wage (I think $70K) and don't have private health insurance, not too mention compulsory pension payments rising to 12%. Business has it even worse with workers compensation, payroll tax and even taxes paid in advance for small to medium businesses (so if you go broke they already have your tax). The current issue is a super profits tax on mining companies, apparently they earn too much so the gov't wants some action and will take 40% so it can fund more money in health care and pensions so that they will get re-elected. The gov't obviously feel that we do not know how best to spend our money so they figure the best solution is to take it all off us and they will decide where it gets spent. They are raking in so much money that the $40Bn deficit we went into during the GFC will be paid back in 3 years, well as long as China or our rather inflated property market doesn't crash.
But we are talking about cars. I have no explanation of why the used car market is so high here. Obviously led from new car sales, I have looked around for explanations and there seem to be none. Even cars that are under the luxury car tax thresh hold seem to hold a high value on the used car market. Its very annoying. I was about to buy a Masser in the UK when I decided to leave and there is little chance of owning one here. Though with the current exchange rate importing has become more of an option but you will pay more than the cars value in fees and charges by the time its on the road here.
The money the government makes from speed camera's is obscene and the fines are going up again. The cameras are everywhere, hidden and mobile we even have combined speed and red light camera's on intersections here so if you speed up to get through on the amber you get pinged. There are so many cameras (they are in cars parked on the side of the road) that it had to be outsourced to a private company because it was using too many police resources. I have had 3 fines in the year I have been back and I am driving a a 1991 Mitsubishi Lancer. The closest I got to a fine in the UK was doing 100mph on a motorway and being waved at to slow down by a cop. That would have been a 6 month loss of license a 600 quid fine and I would have lost my car if that were here. What is speeding here well you get a 4km/h (2.5mph) lea way so in a 60km/h (37.5mph) zone you won't get booked until you are doing a whooping 64km/h (40mph). That will cost you $133 and 1 demerit point (if you get more than 12points in a 3 year period you lose your license for 3 months). If you should hit 73km/h $200 and 3 points, same for a red light and not wearing your seat belt. 80km $333 4 points, 90km $466 6 points and over 100km forget about it, $933 8 points 6 month immediate loss of license and your car is impounded under the new Hoon rules which Lewis ran fowl of over here during the F1 GP by doing a burnout and lost his loaned Merc to boot. This prompted Webber to start the whole Nanny state thing. He was forced to apologise whilst here but he has been pretty vocal about the Nanny country in the last week.
Man that makes me feel better, rant over. If you managed to read all this I applaud you.
Anyway best get back to paying my taxes and spending more time looking at my speedo than the road. Have all these rules and fines reduced the road toll? No not really despite cars being about 5 times safer than they were 20 years ago when they started all this camera BS.
Howie