Victoria is hellbent on becoming the Venezuela of the South Pacific. Having wrecked their economy and plunged the state into record debt with eye-watering spending on vote buying, gargantuan, socialist infrastructure projects, the Labor government is resorting to ever-more desperate ways to get their claws on other people’s money to pay for it all. Or, at least, keep up with the interest payments on the debt.
Increased revenue across payroll tax, the Covid Debt Levy, windfall gains tax and stamp duty have all surged to make Victoria the most-taxed state in the nation. It’s about to get a whole lot worse, with the state government instigating yet another round of Puffy Pants Taxes.
(“Puffy Pants Taxes” are those opportunistic taxes that greedy, grasping political leaners slap on anything and everything they can. The quote comes from The Simpsons episode “Radioactive Man, in which sleazy Springfield mayor Quimby tries to milk a visiting Hollywood production for every cent he can squeeze out of it. Even when the production packs up and leaves in disgust, Quimby imposes a “Leaving Town tax”.)
Late fees for fines are set to surge by more than 70 per cent under a state government plan to recoup an extra $40 million in revenue, a move condemned by legal groups as harming the most vulnerable.
The dramatic increase, which includes fees for unpaid tolls and traffic offences, has sparked concerns that vulnerable Victorians already overwhelmed by ballooning fines will be pushed further into debt.
And, just coincidentally, the state government is rolling out $49 million worth of new speed cameras, aka ‘cash registers’. This, in the state that already has the most speed cameras, some 2,000 of them. To paraphrase the Beatles, if you try to drive, they’ll tax the street.
The government has admitted the move will impose a significant burden on some, but said it was necessary to recover the full cost of enforcing fines that are not paid on time […]
The department’s preferred option to revamp the fines regulations would increase fee revenue by almost $40 million to about $160 million – a figure that would cover the full cost of enforcing fines – and would come into effect next year.
The government considered another option that would allow concession cardholders to pay lower fees, but concluded this option would not recover enough costs, according to a regulatory impact statement published this week.
In other words, not rake in enough cash for a near-bankrupt government.
And rake in the cash, it does.
The Allan government collected about $946 million in total fine revenue last financial year, which includes revenue taken from road safety cameras, toll evasions, on-the-spot infringements and other statutory infringements.
It’s easy enough to say, ‘Well, if you don’t speed, you won’t get fined’, but Victoria’s cash registers will go ker-ching! even if a driver is as little as two km/h over the limit.
Shifrah Blustein, managing lawyer at Inner Melbourne Community Legal, said the changes were a “tone-deaf cash grab” made in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis […]
“This is how they treat people; they just want to bring the money in,” she said.
Any way they can.
The government’s move to increase fine fees comes alongside a string of other policies and taxes.
This week, legislation was introduced to parliament that would dramatically increase a tax on CBD car parks and expand its boundaries to inner-city suburbs.
I’d be more inclined to pity Victorians, though, if they didn’t keep masochistically voting for more of this.
