Disaster Levy?

Any country including Australia can impose a disaster levy, but only as a very last resort. It should only be imposed if other means of funding should prove insufficient to pay off the cost of repairing any damage caused. It should not be imposed at all for minor disasters which cause very small amounts of cost to state. It can be imposed for disasters that cause so much cost to state that it cannot be funded sufficiently by other means of funding.

Australian are already paying skyrocketing taxes each year and adding the extra burden of a disaster levy before even attempting to try other means of fundraising is simply unfair on us, the taxpayers. We should not be thrust under the burden of a disaster levy when we are already under the heavy burden of our existing taxes. In fact, the levy could even cause bankruptcy for many people in the near future. Those who have already cut their budget to donate money are especially affected by it because the levy is a compulsory tax and it requires them to cut their already cut down budget even more. It would be just plain unfair on us taxpayers.

The government may have overlooked all possible outcomes of a disaster levy, but that still does not explain why they have not tried any other method first. If other means of funding is sufficient or could even raise just a small amount of money that would be contributed, it would remove the burden of a levy from our heads or at the very least, significantly reduce it. Why should the government search our pockets before even looking at its own quite large pocket? We are spending too much money for other useless reasons like Kevin Rudd’s insulation plan which cost many lives and a large sum of money. All that resulted in chaos. Even if the government could set aside a small quantity of money each year for disaster funding, that in itself will cut down the remaining cost and may even be sufficient to pay for the entire repairing process. The government should not force us to pay for something the government hasn’t even tried to pay.

The government is falsely advertising the levy as a one-off tax by suggesting that disasters are rare and unexpected. If disasters are unexpected, then we cannot accurately suggest that they are rare. Disasters could happen all at once or they could happen once in a while. It is wrong to strongly suggest that disasters are rare. We do not yet know how often they are to occur, though the government has decided that they are rare. Even in the recent times we have experienced disasters presenting themselves one after the other continuously. That in itself is enough proof that the government is providing us with misleading information and it is wrong.