Fuel, 50c a Litre

[Witchdoctor]

I was sent this, Members may find this interesting reading


Fuel: The Mass Debate



Or How to Knock About 50c a Litre Off the Price Of Fuel



First and foremost this debate should be centred on Diesel NOT Unleaded. Why? You may ask. Just look at the increase in supermarket prices for your answer. While it may cost you $5 or $10 extra to fill your tank everything that is transported (which is everything) rises as Diesel rises. My average basket at the supermarket per week has increased on average $30 and that’s for one person. Australia’s whole economy is tied to Diesel and therefore it should be afforded the same priority and status as water I.e. An essential commodity.

I own a small transport company and I have had to significantly raise my prices twice in the past year just to maintain profit margins. This cost you money too.

I am compelled to write this letter because I am sick of all the namby-pamby pussyfooting around everyone seems to be doing about the current fuel debate. I have spent considerable time researching this area because it affects my income. Contained herein is the WHOLE truth about the debate, the WHOLE big picture, if you will. NO-ONE till now has had the testicular fortitude to stick their necks out and present the WHOLE argument about just how much we are being RIPPED OFF. If you want the truth and the WHOLE truth read on.

DON’T – Listen to spin doctors from the oil companies. THEY HAVE A VESTED INTREST TO KEEP FUEL PRICES HIGH.

DON’T – Listen to the government – state or federal. THEY HAVE A VESTED INTREST TO KEEP FUEL PRICES HIGH.

DON’T – pay too much attention to news or current affairs programs. THEY HAVE THEIR OWN AGENDAS.

So here we go, How to make fuel cheaper!

FIRSTLY – DISBAND FUEL PARITY

Parity, for those that don’t know, is government sanctioned price fixing (simple as that). Parity allows fuel companies to sell their products for the highest current price they find in the Asia Pacific region. It completely disregards supply and demand economics and eliminates any need for competition amongst them selves.

Don’t believe me? Just look at the price of Diesel. If you remember growing up when Diesel was always 10-15c p/l cheaper than Petrol you might understand this more.

How can a product that costs far less to produce (partially a by-product of producing Unleaded as well) and a product that Australia uses more of than any other fuel be MORE EXPENSIVE than Unleaded? Simple, ring Singapore, where they don’t use a lot of Diesel and import all their fuel, find out how much it’s selling for there and charge the same here – sound fair? NOT!

Any other industry who tried this one would be hauled of to the High Court quick smart and prosecuted for price fixing! Oh but hang on, our government ALLOWS them to do this

NUMBER TWO – BARRELL PRICE

That price the news loves to show us each night is the PREMIUM GRADE crude oil price. Australian oil companies DO NOT buy PREMIUM GRADE crude oil! In fact Australia produces around 70% of its own oil and imports about 30%. The cost of production per litre produced here is cheaper than that of imported fuel, but in no way is this factored into the pump price, because they don’t need to (SEE PARITY ABOVE) we pay a pump price based on PREMIUM GRADE crude oil price the same as if we imported all of it, say somewhere like Singapore! Starting to get the picture?

NUMBER THREE – LEVIES

Everyone knows that both State and Federal Governments take a large slice of the cost of a litre of fuel. This equates in total to about 46% of the price per litre. This money is used for infrastructure, road trauma etc. Etc. So fair enough right? WRONG!

What is wrong is that it is a PERCENATGE! Look at this. If a litre of fuel costs $1.00 then the Government gets 46c p/l, right? A week later fuel rises to $1.10 p/l; the Government gets 50.6c p/l, bingo! Something tells me that in one week, their costs, IN NO WAY have gone up 9%!

As I stated previously – THE GOVERNMENT HAS A VESTED INTREST TO KEEP FUEL PRICES HIGH. THEY MAKE LOTS MORE FREE MONEY! Why else do they allow fuel companies to maintain PARITY?

If they changed the tax (sorry, levy) to a flat rate tied to the GDP then the fuel price would drop drastically and immediately!

NUMBER FOUR – GST - THE DOUBLE DIPP

Now this one is outright “THIEVERY” and also applies to cigarettes and alcohol.

GST = Goods and Services Tax, correct?

46% or 46c in every dollar in the price of a litre of fuel is TAX (sorry; again, LEVY).

What part of LEVY is a good or a service? YOU CANNOT TAX, TAX RIGHT? WRONG!

You do the math.

Say fuel costs $1.00 p/l – the GST component = 9c

But hang on a minute 46% or 46c of this is TAX!

i.e., 4.14c of the GST is ILLEGALLY CHARGED ON THE TAX COMPONENT! Not much you say?

FOR EVERY LITRE SOLD IN AUSTRALIA EVERY DAY!

That equates to millions of free dollars for the Government! I’ll say it one more time - THE GOVERNMENT HAS A VESTED INTREST TO KEEP FUEL PRICES HIGH. THEY MAKE LOTS MORE FREE MONEY!

The GST on fuel should be 5.4% not 10%. At $1.75 p/l this would drop the current price by around 8c p/l.

Feeling a little annoyed? You should be!

Even without disbanding parity and introducing real competition among fuel companies, you should be paying about 40c less per litre!

My name is Graeme Strempel, [e-mail] and I run a small transport business, I happily welcome anyone, Government and fuel companies included to prove me wrong.

If you feel strongly about this issue then pass this missive on to everyone in your address book. Eventually someone might take notice.

[geeves]

todays prices in wellington
91 = $2.12
diesel = $1.85 + milage tax 2.2c per km
Im going to have to figure out how to recycle lawn clippings etc

[wayne85]

i couldnt agree more with u but i think the truckies have the real power, i think the only way the goverment will crop the tax on the diesel is if the truckies all go on strike and bring this country's economy to its knees. even if they need 2 strike for 2 weeks it will be worth it. the fuel prices r making so many families suffer and i myself am starting 2 feel the pinch. something needs to be done we can keep going on like this!!!

[Bruce]

In the 70s the truckies had a blockade out side of Sydney at Razorback Mountain, now changed name. Cannot remember what it was for, to long ago, but I have heard that they are trying to get another one going over the fuel prices. Lets hope so, remember to back them ;)not get annoyed if it makes you late going some where.

Cheers Bruce

[wayne85]

well i work with alot of truckies and a few of them now have told me 2 start stocking up on can foods cause a big strike is coming

[geeves]

problem is that fuel is as cheap in real terms as it was in the late 70s and a lot cheaper than it was any time before 1950

[gecko]

fuel prices are bad but how can you change the price on what you already have in the tanks for 3 months? a camel farts in the middle east and whats already been paid for and is stitting in storage tanks goes up, israel gives the old shifty eyes at iran and the fuel sitting in tanks in our country goes up.

does anyone know if a diesel can be run on pepsi becasue if you shop around you can pick it up for 99cents for 1.5 liters, how much refinery goes into pepsi and how much goes in to diesel lol.

the goverment is screwing us, we work for them when it should be the other way round, i wounder how many people have had enough and are now not paying road tax? by winding back their odometers?

i never thought i would do this but im looking at hooking the EGR back into my MU becasue someone said with it on they were getting better fuel economy.

[terravistawombat]

I hate the idea of these current fuel prices, but it amuses me when the you see the people whinging about the cost of fuel but buy a bottle of Coke for twice the price per litre, or bottled water for the same. Fuel has to be discoverd, drilled for, transported, refined, transported again, and sold through multi million dollar outlets. This doesn't alter the fact that we are being ripped off, and Coke is a luxury compared to fuel, but lets face it, many other items are a bigger rip off than fuel.
Obviously we are being lied to by the big corporations about the so called 1 to 2 cents per litre profit. Lets face it, no-one would buy an old servo, spend a lazy million fixing it up, and market the main selling product for such a low profit.
Perhaps we should start looking at the American system of showing our disgust at being ripped off. The occasional assassination may put the brakes on the more obvious rorting.
Not that I'm suggesting or condoning this type of action, but if I was being promoted into a lucrative position because my predecessor was assassinated, I'd think twice about the future decisions to increase profit margins by 65%.
Cheers

[muvit madness]

MMMM good point
It's like anything we take for granted tho.

cheers
muvit

[gecko]

in new zealand ive noticed bottled water and 600ml fizzy drinks are the most expensive and servo stations, if you look at the price its cheaper to buy a 1.5L there, if you are buying bottled water every day, thats just silly, but if you are out and about and want a drink, your not going to drive all the way home to get some water out of the tap, your buying a nice cold water now.

that reminds me you can run your car on water lol, my mate was looking into it, adding hydrogen gas to the intake side of his diesel engine, for better fuel econemy

[geeves]

Theres a few articles on that on the web about that including enough info to build the system for free. Jury seems to be out on whether its a con or good idea. The principle is that you electrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen and collect both. You then feed these into the air intake and it catalyst's the mixture making it burn better. Much like lpg injection. The mix of h2 and o is known as browns gas and has some fairly magical properties.The whole thing runs in a glass jar under your bonnet useing the 12 volt supply you already have. How it can create enough gas to do anything useful is a mystery to me.

[gecko]

i guess it depends on the set up, ive seen one where the collected gas gets feed into a holding tank and is under pressure, you can run the vechical on just hydrogen but you need stainless steel valves and ceramic bores, to get round moisture so ive been told, hydrogen is easy to make, when i was young it only took a 12volt adapter 2 D size batterys and a chinese food punet to fill a 600ml bottle with hydrogen, boy did thoughs make a bang when i let them off lol

we had a mate fulling his diesel toyota corona with old canola oil out of power transformers (it was replaced oil and basically waste oil) he said his car went like it had a turbo, no mods either and he didnt have any problems with it.

[geeves]

canola oil? Is that what they replaced the old pcb based oil with. One day he will find a transfrormer that wasnt converted. The old stuff doesnt burn but can give a whole range of cancers.
Canola oil needs to be heated slightly to go through the injectors. The way things are going though its nearly the same price in the supermarket as diesel is in the pump.
Yes hydrogen is easy to make but how long did it take to fill the 600ml bottle Think of this in terms of the total charge going into the engine of roughly 1500 liters of air a minute at idle

[gecko]

nah he wasnt stealing the canola oil or anything, he knew a guy who had the contract for replacing the oil in the power transformers, the guy had alot of waste oil and then traded, he also didnt do any mods at all to run the oil, just tiped it in the fuel tank, the only thing he may have added was a litre or petrol or diesel i cant remember which one though, i think it may have been petrol, i kind of remember thinking it was crazy at the time being a diesel and all lol

the way i made hydrogen was slow until i added salt, but there is definatly better ways of doing it.

another thing with current fuel prices, diesel doesnt have road tax added into it, but petrol does, our boat runs on 91 and were paying road tax on that.

[geeves]

You used to be able to get a exemption to get that fuel tax back but some people were caught cheating. Some marinas have tax free petrol available but not sure of the rules

[gecko]

Well well well, the truckies of New Zealand have had enough, their sick of the ridiculous fuel prices that by the way get pushed on to you and me the next time we buy something. and now RUC's (road user charges) are going up which is on diesel vehicles.

so truckies around New Zealand have got together and are going to drive into the CBD's and block up the works, and others around the country or maybe just in Taranaki who arnt/cant take part is this are going to drive 20kmph below every speed limit

when I heard about this I had a big smile on my face, its going to be huge and going to block up the CBD's of the main citys it will only take 1 or 2 rogue trucks to really make it memorable, the transport minister who is so out of touch with the real world (people who earn decent money and pay for their own fuel/cars) and doesnt even deserve her name here, has said that its unfair that the truckies are going to inconvenience the New Zealand public but it’s the government that is inconveniencing us everyday with this bull****, every week theres a new tax on a tax on a tax on a litre of fuel, why should RUC’s go up just because petrol has gone up, because petrol has gone up in price and the governments tax proportion on petrol has gone up, doesn’t mean RUC’s for diesel’s should go up, there is no increase in the need for money to pay for roading, were already paying for it. the only increase is the fuel price itself. Their just greedy, their ment to work for us, and make decisions that help us, not the other way round.

The current government knows come elections their gone, people are sick of them so their embarking on a scorched earth policy, leave nothing useful behind, if you cant have it no one else can.

The ZM radio station has said their ZM MR Wippy truck will be giving out ice cream tomorrow lol, I wish I could give them something to show my support.

[geeves]

Ok the current government is not achieving a pass mark in the current tests but have a close look at the main competition and they will get a fail as well. This last increase in tax is due to ACC levies which have gone up because some highly intelligent consultant who was probably the reserve bank governor at the time suggested that if the ACC collects the total cost of all accidents in the year they happen instead of the old way of just collecting what they have to spend fixing accidents in any one year and the government will have lots more money in there pockets. The reserve bank governor in power when this change was made has since been leader of the opposition. Australian insurance companies have already looked over the opposition policy on ACC and are now waiting patiently for there 200000000 a year windfall. Guess whos pocket this comes from.
I might end up voteing green this year. If nothing else at least they are fairly honest. Just think no more car running costs because theres no more cars.

[gecko]

haha theres nothing green about the greens well except for dope, when it comes to elections i follow 3 simple rules, no matter who gets in it wont help us, if their lips are moving their lieing, and who dont you want in.

i just see in the news from next month their going to stop "big rigs" using the auckland harbor bridge, plus this new increase on RUC's, i wonder if any of this has something todo with the governments "kiwi rail", its competition government style.
and now we have the current government to thank for local Councils being able to impose a fuel tax, great now they can use that money to debate transmission gully for the next 60 years, it just doenst seem to stop.

[geeves]

They are bringing back in the rule about no trucking more than 150km again as well. Once the country stops they will realize how many places are more than 150km from a railway line.

Might be a good idea to avoid political discussion due to the electoral finance act. It wont change the world anyway. Only thing that might is to actually vote but even that's a long shot

[gecko]

i dont get it the government isnt a business it shouldnt be trying to compete with local new zealand businesses, i see what you mean about political discussions, ive tryed not to push anyone side well just becasue there all about as bad lol