Fed: Govt must cut petrol in line with GST primise: Crean

AAP General News (Australia)
08-21-2000
Fed: Govt must cut petrol in line with GST primise: Crean

CANBERRA, Aug 21 AAP - The federal government must honour its promise to cut fuel excise
by the equivalent amount of GST added to the price, opposition treasury spokesman Simon
Crean said today.

Queensland Premier Peter Beattie is leading a push for a Senate inquiry into petrol
price rises, but Prime Minister John Howard told The Australian state grants would have
to be cut if excise were reduced.

Labor has yet to commit itself to the inquiry and Australian Democrats leader Meg Lees
remained to be convinced of the need for yet another inquiry and wanted assurances it
was not just a political witchhunt.

Mr Crean, who helped Mr Beattie draft his petition, said Labor would use all parliamentary
processes - a Senate inquiry was just one - to force the government to honour its promise
petrol would not rise with GST.

"That does include a Senate inquiry," Mr Crean told ABC Radio.

"We've got coalition backbenchers who went to their electorates last election promising
the GST would not force the price of petrol up.

"They've got to stand in the parliament and justify why they've broken that promise
and we will campaign on it at the local level and use the forms of the parliament to expose
the deceit."

He said the GST was providing an unexpected windfall. Every 10-cent petrol price rise,
the government creamed off another one cent in GST.

"It's got to honour its promise that the price of petrol won't go up as a result of
the GST," Mr Crean said.

"If it takes a Senate inquiry to expose that deceit, we would use it, but I would have
thought that this is an issue that's self-evident ahead of an inquiry and what we'll be
using is other forms of the parliament to try and expose that deceit."

He said the government now collected more tax than it did under the pre-GST system
with boosted excise one reason for that.

Asked whether a Labor government would cut fuel excise, Mr Crean said: "What we'll
be doing is holding the government to its promise."

AAP fh/it

KEYWORD: PETROL CREAN

2000 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.