Cost of living: Cuts to fuel tax, road user charges, public transport fares extended to January 2023

The Government is expanding cost of living support by extending reductions to fuel excise duty, road user charges, and public transport by more than five months until the end of January next year.

Announced at a hastily arranged 4pm press conference on Sunday, this is a pre-emptive strike to the inflation numbers tomorrow.

The Finance Minister will know what tomorrows figures are and this announcement is suppression fire.

The half priced public transport has proven to be very popular with the poor who spend almost 30% of their weekly income on public transport costs, welfare payment increases get claw back from MSD where as half priced public transport keeps the money in their pocket.

The problem for the petrol tax subsidy is that the true impact of Russian oil and gas cutbacks won’t be felt till later this year. That pain will make it politically impossible to lift in January without making all public transport free.

America and the UK have hit 40 year high inflation rates as the inflationary dampening powers of globalised supply chains become severed by Covid and an environment that is rapidly warming in a dangerously out of control manner.

We are in dangerously uncharted territory as unique supply side dynamics generate hyper inflationary pressures. An entropy of just in time homogenised trans national oligarchy will leave us dangerously exposed to bottlenecks and skyrocketing inflation as Reserve Banks are forced to rapidly raise interest rates.

This will smash the renter class, beneficiaries and first time millennial home buyers the most.

An entire class and generation are about to be mugged by Rigged Capitalism. Again.

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