I have been thinking about the rise in prices. On the one hand higher prices for petrol and diesel is good as it will reduce our consumption of what appears to be a finite resource. While I am not totally convinced that climate change is man made or that its consequences is bad, if you do then surely higher fuel prices is a good thing.
On the other hand higher fuel prices hits people hard, but not all people equally hard. In my case I walk to work and my wife catches the train to work. Its less than a 5 minute walk for her to get to the station. So we generally drive our van very little, just to friends places, the beach and church. We do not need to commute for which I am very thankful. However my parents live on a farm and need to drive to get anywhere. I too previously drove about 600kms a week in my work so petrol was a large cost.
Now we get Brenden Nelson saying the government should cut the fuel excise to help Australians. This would not help me much but would help others a great deal.
Thinking about LPG, from what I understand Australia is self sufficient with LPG and we export it to China for about one cent a litre. If thats the case then it would be good for Australia to stop using imported fuels and start using LPG as a substitute. The first step was already put in place through the LPG subsidy started by the previous Federal government. Is that subsisdy going to continue with the new government?
What would be the effect of mandating that all new vehicles sold in Australia be able to use LPG? Petrol vehicles can use LPG as a fuel source with some modifications. Diesels motors can use LPG too, but not 100%. Diesels are happy to use around 20% of LPG in their combustion process.
Forcing the use of LPG in vehicle engines could do much to improve our economy as more Australians would buy Australian cars. If BMW or Peurgeot could not make an LPG car for Australia then too bad.
Unfortunately higher fuel prices directly affects inflation which affects everyone, it is one of the drivers of interest rates, fmcg etc - everything costs more.
Another issue for the environmentalists is future power generation in WA - there is a huge demand for increased electricity in the next decade. Unfortunately gas supplies available from NW for domestic use (industry and private) are severely limited going forward - thank the government for that. As a result there DEFINITELY WILL BE more coal powered stations - unfortunately our governments are too short term focussed.
I think do more involving little motorbikes. Get the media to portray them as convenient and practical, instead of a quick ticket to the grave. Not 1000cc sports ones. But little 250's would be enough for most people to commute. It would reduce congestion, and parking problems. (2-3 bikes per car bay). We (australia) should create our own bike company. Making bulk, dirt cheap, reliable bikes.
The smaller capacity ones would use naff all fuel.
Its amazing, during peak hour traffic, nearly every single car has only one person in.
Maybe encouraging car pooling as well. Having 3 passengers (a full car basically), would quarter your fuel costs if its split evenly. Would get 3 cars off the road, and make the drive less of a bore for everyone, as you can have a chat to and from work.
Also, make public transport "free". Add a small tax, maybe 50-100 bucks for the year, that everyone pays, and then you can travel all you want, through any zone, on any of the trains/buses/ferries.
Again, it would greatly reduce traffic jams, less petrol would be used, and I think it would make the commute to work safer. ie , less idiots to crash ino driving.
Thats all I got at the moment.
think the excise reduction is a complete waste of time, as the price of the fuel goes up the excise remains the same so as a percentage of cost it doesn’t really help the consumer long term in fact the 5 cent benefit is reduced more and more as a percentage of cost as the fuel rises, where as the gst on fuel is the thing that gets my goat, 1 dollar makes one dollar and ten cents in gst , 2 dollars is two dollars and twenty cents in gst , what’s worse is its taxed after the excise so its a tax on a tax and it hurts more the people that live in rural areas where fuel is generally higher from 10 cents up to 40 cents more than city users - so essentially paying more gst.
Solutions, fix the GST component that’s a start, LPG is a good idea too and as stated injection into diesel engines increase efficiencies, pure LPG engines for freight trucks from what I have heard are not up to task. Freight is a big part of the inflation problem because fuels the biggest cost of inputs.
I think many grain farmers that can grow canola, that in a years time will be crushing their own oil from their seed and using that to run the farm operation, I was going to type the economics of that assumption, but basically farmers would do this to offset rising input cost of fuel to the risk of a successful season.
I see a tsunami coming very soon, its called inflation.
SIMPLE..... on the mark moby...STOP selling gas to asia for a pittance and keep IT ALL for AUSSIES....... and sell it to us for the same price that u give it away to the japs for.
we dont need oil.
F M D...when there is an energy CRISIS in a few yrs , and all stocks are depleated............................................. i wont be able to go on my windsurf trips up north 
or it will take me 2 months to get there on my solar powered tri-cycle
mind-u....it wont matter ,...as when indo-china invades Australia using all the resources we sold them,... windsurfing will be the last thing on my mind....unless its a means of escape to tazzy....
My brother has a Mazda Metro 121 1998 model which is manual and has a 1.3 liter engine. it runs on next to nothing and with the way fuel prices are at the moment and in the future I am going to drive that and it will save me a lot of money. One of my mates has a farm on Yorke Peninsular in South Australia and during the holidays they bought 4000 liters of diesel at $1.63 a liter and get next to nothing in terms of rebate I think around 4c a liter so they are buying around 6000 dollars worth of fuel so they can plant there crops and make food for Asia. As far as I know not a lot of Australian produced grain actually goes into our food. please correct me if I am wrong on that point. With rising inflation and house prices I think it will be near to impossible to own a farm that will make some money as the land now is around 1 million plus dollars to by and when I am ready to buy the land will be a lot more. one other thing I have seen in the news a lot is carbon trading which is wear people plant trees to offset their carbon emissions. On Kangaroo Island there has been a lot of big companies by land to plant trees on to offset there emissions and a lot of these companies are from Asia.
Cheers Pittsy
it is cheaper to buy aussie LPG in china than perth... krud sucks chinas wang and wouldn't dare to the right thing by the people who so quickly voted the slim ball into palament [im talking about "working families" so really non of you did as so far noone is a working class family in his bid to keep the illusion going] so don't get your hopes up.
fuel atm costs around 95c per L, gov tax makes up the rest of it to what you pay at the station.
the whole situation is a bad joke and it will take someone with balls to do anything about it. unfortuanatly those people with real guts and resolve are in the private sector with names like Andrew Forest. the gov sold alinta and telstra, from this it can be deducted that the idea of setting up a domestic serving gas company by the gov would not happen with the current attitude. all you can hopefor is that they change law to make a minimum allocation to the local market enforcable on all new leases.
sorry, going out and don't have time to proof read
1. Remove GST from Fuel.
2. State Governments should not be allowed to to Tax Fuel.
3. Prices should be set by the Government, So we stop getting ripped of by the oil
companies.
unless we adopt 3. whatever KR might do, the petrol companies will devour any price reduction in a week!
The Mining boom my freinds While China Keeps wanting Steel Nothing will change..
Mining companies make money, goverment makes Money...
Big Trucks use a lot of diesel hence the high Price...
I can only say that driving a small car that cost about 60 dollars to fill up and does 600k's on a tank if the price was 2 dollars a litre it wouln't matter.....
I like the discount fuel vouchers and if you sat down and looked at what you are really saving you would laugh... pertrol at say 1.65 a litre you get a 4 cent docket so for a 60 litre tank it would usually cost 99 dollars to fill up you save 4 cents a litre so it makes fuel 1.61 or 96.60 so you save 2.40 so in a year if you filled up ever fortnight as i do you would save 57.60 i lose this sort of money behind the couch.... If they wanna cut fuel prices and make it count they will have to be cutting 30 to 40 cents a litre other wise a 5 cent saving will just be taken up by the oil companies....Maybe they should replace the roads with Chanels and we could all sail to work..
Maybe as a race we all just need to slow down.This here and now way of life is just way over the top.Along with it comes stress and associated problems.We have developed an attitude of little patients.Time is way more important than money.
Imagine if it did take 2 months to travel to gnarloo...What an awsome adventure that would be!!! You would actually get to spend some great times with your family and friends along the way.
If you had to walk or ride a pushie to work or the shop or whatever imagine how healthy ,as a race , we would become.Humans would become hard again and values would change.Stress would become a word of the past.
As communities we would have to actually work together to grow food as the transport system will fail without the fuel to drive it.There would be no more idol teens getting into mischief as they would have real chores to do...chopping wood for the fire,weeding veggie patches,milking cows,feeding chooks,etc.
Personally i say bring it on!! Ban the oil now and use whats left for basic services like electricity and public transport.
What a clean and healthy utopia we would live in
KRudd has himself to blame. Remember last year he said he would do this and that to help "working families"? If he can't do anything to stop fuel prices from rising he and Swan should stop talking about it and start talking about stuff they can do.
As our petroleum products prices are set in Singapore, the only real way Australia could reduce the price is either by reducing consumption or increasing supply. As neither of those events are likely to happen removing our dependency upon these products seems to be the way to go, just like a junkie stops using heroin supplied by their dealer and starts using methadone supplied by their chemist. Its not as good but its cheaper.
Sorry can't see how Australia reducing consumption or increasing supply is going to change the world oil price. Nor can I see how any Australian Government (whom ever it may be) can change the world oil price either.
Now that KR is PM, he has probably relaised how insignificant an Australin PM is to these Oil companies. Hi biggest mistake is he actually thought he could make a difference.
egypt..30 cents a litre, indonesia... 50 cents a litre... oil is abiotic, the screws are beginning to tighten... www.zeitgeistmovie.com
best i've seen is five, with shopping on end of poles across the middle two guys shoulders, and a little kid holding on for dear life between the riders feet in the step through...
When the liberal leader started spouting this rubbish about reducing fuel prices, didn't Costello say something along the lines of "No, that'll never work, don't be ridiculous"?
So why did labour then pick up that policy?
Labour still haven't figured out that it's them that are in power now, they don't have to claw votes back on every perceived issue.
Ask not what KRudd can do but rather what can you do?
Try selling your fk uff big V8 or SUV (yep here I go again on my pet hate) if you don't actually go off road and get off your couch inflated @rse and ride/bus/walk to work! Go on fatty - it will help you live longer (providing one of Perths idiot motorists doesn't skittle ya).
I don't see many cyclists getting cranky over high fuel 
. Quite the opposite - they are loving less cars on the road!
Face facts - fuel is only going to get more and more exxy - and fast too.. We have had it far too good for far too long because no-one wants to point to the big elephant in the corner of the servo.
I just received this email and I agree.
Government Fuel Scam
For this government AND previous. Stop the fuel scam!
Don't talk about the Singapore fuel price.
Don't say you cannot do anything, as your tax coffers
get a steady increase from this misery.
Tell me about the increased TAX revenue that comes with every
increase in fuel, both state and federal.
Reducing the excise (percentage tax) on a fuel price gone mad is NOT a
cut.
You still get MORE with every fuel increase. It's like stores save SAVE to
buy
useless things at reduced price.
I say CAP the DOLLAR tax cost, say at Dec 2007 average fuel price. Cap the
tax components (both GST and Excise at that dollar value!).
If you have to increase it at all, only CPI increase would
be somewhat moral. Stop Singapore tax percentage increases, with or
without percentage "cut".
Otherwise, why not CPI increase the age pension based on the fuel price as
well??
To make matters worse, the tax scam (by increasing the total price on
fuel)
also fuels INFLATION. Has Mr Rudd heard about the inflation?
Because it increases INFLATION, we end up getting higher mortgage rates
and overall cost of living as WELL. We already have GST special treatment
of essential groceries.
IT'S TIME FOR FUEL to have a tax re-think.
When will media and polititians start using the right termonology!
Don't talk about a cut, when it's accellerating,
talk about a cap an "INCREASE STOP"!
Get real. What happened to Fair GO???
someone invent a cleaner cheaper fuel please
I'm looking for a suzuki DRZ 250
I just need a trailer to put my toys in
looks like I'm goin down to kite and surfboard only
sailing gear may have to park up in the shed
Horse and cart. It's the way of the future.
OR
Dig up the roads, create channels and windsurf to work.
Totally agree with getfunky. Why do people have to drive around in massive inefficient lumps of mental not just the off road vehicles also the Commodore and Falcon pieces of sh!t with 3.0 and 4.0 litre engines.
In Europe a 2.0 car is considered a large engine. They still manage to tow caravans or sales persons spend all day out on the road.
Sure increased oil prices will affect everyone even if you don’t own a motor vehicle but for those that do own one some tough decisions concerning the fuel guzzling, polluting, pride and joys will have to be made.
cheap fuel and wind here
just dont mention the words "carbon footprint"
I think this is where some of your petty money went
We need to get out of this bull#### globel econemy, we need to start making products back in Australia, we need to stop selling all our resourses to the highest bidder who gives a s##t if they can't afford a new plasma every 2 years.
