this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2026
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Australian Politics

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I wonder what disability the lady in the photo has?

Australia’s biggest fossil fuel subsidy is the Fuel Tax Credit Scheme, which cost the federal budget a staggering $10.8 billion in 2025-26. That’s more than is spent on the Australian Army.

The Fuel Tax Credit Scheme is basically a tax break for mining companies and other major users of diesel and petrol.

When you fill up your car with 50 litres of fuel, you pay 52c per litre in fuel tax, or $26 in total.

Many suburban families would do that every week, paying over $1,300 in fuel tax each year on the 2,600 litres of fuel they use.

By contrast, BHP uses nearly 1,300,000,000 litres of fuel each year and pays zero in fuel tax.

To be more accurate, BHP pays around $627 million in fuel tax that the government later pays back to BHP under the Fuel Tax Credit Scheme.

To summarise, suburban drivers pay $1,300 in fuel tax per year, while BHP pays nothing on over a billion of litres of the same fuel.

https://thepoint.com.au/opinions/260312-if-the-ndis-is-runaway-spending-what-do-we-call-16-billion-in-fossil-fuel-subsidies

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[–] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone 3 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

One sided article that is more like propaganda than a serious attempt at discussion

They estimate fuel subsidised will reach:

Our estimate is $16.3 billion in 2025-26.

vs

This week's budget papers show the NDIS will cost $48.5 billion this financial year. Looking forward, it projects it'll be $52.3 billion in 2025-26 and up to $63.4 billion by 2028-29.

The NDIS is now more expensive than Medicare and isn't far off matching spending on defence. Because of that, it draws a lot of scrutiny — and rightly so.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-27/budget-2025-shows-ndis-has-a-pr-problem/105095724

abc did this one better

[–] arbilp3@aussie.zone 2 points 1 hour ago

Off topic. This article is about too much subsidised fuel. It is not about comparing with the NDIS costs. It's saying that if there were less fuel subsidy there'd be more for the NDIS and I'd add other social and environmental investment needs.

[–] wifemademesignup@lemmy.world 8 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

The context of this rebate is the tax is designed to pay for roads. These companies have to split their diesel use between vehicles that use roads and those that do not (e.g. mine trucks).

So they managed to get someone in government many years ago to say "why yes, you don't use roads so you don't need to pay the roads tax on fuel".

Considering how profitable these companies are ... well.

Happy to be corrected in this background if someone knows better.

[–] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone 3 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

I think the article has focused purely on these supermassive companies and their profits but not looked at the scheme as a whole, here is a counter article:

"Fuel excise is a road tax, designed to fund the construction and maintenance of public roads. The Fuel Tax Credit ensures that fuel not used on public roads — such as agricultural machinery, fishing trawlers, mining equipment and generators — is rightfully refunded."

"The Fuel Tax Credit is relied on by more than 600,000 businesses across agriculture, fishing, mining, tourism, construction and transport, most of them operating in regional and remote Australia."

"In agriculture alone, diesel powers tractors, harvesters, irrigation systems and on-farm machinery that never touch public roads. Fishing trawlers operate on water, not highways."

https://www.rga.org.au/media-releases/fuel-tax-insanity

If you took these 2 blog posts and put them into 1 article then it'd actually go someways to having a decent article

[–] arbilp3@aussie.zone 1 points 1 hour ago

It IS precisely imv focusing on the the supermassive companies for the obvious reason they get a lot more than they need.

[–] Gnugit@aussie.zone 8 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

I could have enjoyed the rest of my day without having to see a picture of this big fat monster POS in high definition.