TREASURER Joe Hockey today argued his fuel tax increases weren’t unfair to low income earners because they couldn’t afford to own cars anyway.

Mr Hockey said the Budget measure, which Labor, the Greens and some crossbench senators oppose, was “progressive” because the rich would be paying most of the revenue from the fuel index rises.

Mr Hockey said on ABC radio “the people that actually pay the most are higher income people, with an increase in fuel excise and yet, the Labor Party and the Greens are opposing it”.

“They say you’ve got to have wealthier people or middle-income people pay more.

“Well, change to the fuel excise does exactly that; the poorest people either don’t have cars or actually don’t drive very far in many cases. But, they are opposing what is meant to be, according to the Treasury, a progressive tax.”

Needless to say his comments have been ridiculed online.

@GrogsGamut @JoeHockey "can't they just take public transport that poorly services their area because they are poor?" — Sith Lotus (@upulie) August 13, 2014

lol I thought this was a joke but Joe Hockey actually said that — Maddy (@MaddyDell) August 13, 2014

The comment could rattle some of his own MPs in western Sydney and other outer suburban and rural areas where many low income households don’t have the public transport options to replace a family car.

However Mr Hockey stood by it this afternoon, telling reporters in Perth there is “clear evidence...the higher the income, the more the fuel taxes are paid by those households”.

He later released figures he said showed average weekly expenditure on petrol in absolute terms increased with household income, from $16.36 at the lowest income quintile to $53.87 at the highest income group.

His statement quoted Census findings that households in relatively disadvantaged areas are less likely to own motor vehicles than those in relatively advantaged areas.

It said where motor vehicles were owned, households in relatively disadvantaged areas were most likely to own only one car whereas households in relatively advantaged areas were more likely to have two or more cars.

The Treasurer also warned blocking Budget elements could spark an “emergency action” to fix Government spending.

He said much of the Budget had already passed Parliament but that work had to be done to implement “structural changes” on big spending areas such as health.

“Those structural reforms ensure that we have a trajectory on debt that is $300 billion less than what it would be if we went about business as usual,” he said.

“These are the things that are going to help to change the debt trajectory or you end up doing what (Queensland Premier) Campbell Newman and (Queensland Treasurer) Tim Nicholls have had to do in Queensland and that is, take emergency action in order to address the problem you inherit.

“I am warning the people of Australia that if we do not take action now, we are going to end up paying $3 billion a month in interest alone. Seventy per cent of that goes to people living overseas because they’re the people that the Federal Government is borrowing from.”

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