Looks like Tony has pissd off the Nationals as well as most of the rest of us.
Budget: Liberals boast of 'playing the Nats' over contentious fuel excise hikeBy political reporters Mark Simkin and Latika Bourke
One of the budget's most contentious measures, the fuel excise, was born out of a double-dealing power play.
At the very top of the Government there was ferocious arguing, furious lobbying and extraordinary political manoeuvring, as senior Liberals tried to manipulate their Nationals colleagues.
This is the inside story.
Months out from budget day, senior ministers were searching for savings and contemplating something politically toxic.
They wanted to resume indexing the fuel excise to ensure petrol prices rise in line with inflation.
Treasury calculated the measure would reap $2.2 billion over the forward estimates and, most importantly, it would keep raising more and more money every year.
The hard-heads liked the idea but knew they had a problem. How would they get the Coalition's junior partner on board?
A cunning plan is born
Promising to pour money into roads would help, but higher petrol prices are still toxic in the bush, where people drive long distances. So they hatched a cunning plan.
At budget time, Treasury routinely suggests putting the diesel fuel rebate on the sacrificial chopping block.
Worth around $5.5 billion a year, critics call the rebate a hand out, but farmers and miners, who use diesel to run machinery and vehicles vital to their operations, consider it a Holy Grail.
They get a rebate because they use their trucks off road and because the diesel is a business input.
It is considered unfair and inefficient to slug inputs rather than outputs.
Some ministers liked the look of the potential savings but others considered it crazy and said so. Cabinet was split.
Julie Bishop, a West Australian, argued strenuously against touching the rebate.
Trade Minister Andrew Robb was equally vocal, telling colleagues the proposed change was "anti-investment" and would undermine Tony Abbott's mantra that Australia is "open for business".
The Nationals were apoplectic, with one saying "this is a fight we have to win". Barnaby Joyce, the Agriculture Minister, is said to have been "non-negotiable" over the issue.
Outside Parliament, powerful lobby groups were loading their muskets and sharpening their bayonets.
The farmers talked about tractors on the lawns of Parliament House. The miners warned of World War IV - World War III having been its devastatingly successful campaign against Kevin Rudd's super-profits tax.
'Play the Nats'
But it was all a game. Senior Liberals have told the ABC they were never serious about cutting the diesel fuel rebate.
They are boasting it was a tactic to "play the Nats"; the rebate was put on the agenda and deliberately leaked to inflame the Nationals so the party would support the higher fuel excise as the lesser of two evils.
"[Changing the rebate] was never the plan," one senior source declared. "Gina and Twiggy would've come after us" – a reference to two of Australia's richest miners, Gina Rinehart and Andrew Forrest.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-04/liberals-boast-of-playing-the-nats-over-fuel-excise/5500704
