Twenty seven years ago, in 1985, the Australians were fighting against the Goods and Services Tax (GST).
 
In 1995, when John Howard was re-elected leader of the Liberal party, he pledged to "never, ever" introduce the GST.

 
As a result of his declaration, Howard led the Liberal-National Coalition to a large victory in the 1996 elections.

 
However, the nation was only temporarily relieved from GST, because politician-like, Howard made a U-turn and became obsessed with the GST which would replace all sales taxes.

 
As a result, his party suffered a two-party-preferred vote of 49.02 percent at the election, which was a swing of 5.61 percent to the Labour party on 50.98 percent.

Like the BN government, Howard, however, retained a parliamentary majority of the seats in the lower house, calling the election win as a "mandate for the GST".

 
At the turn of the century, on July 1, 2000, the GST came into effect. And the whole country was plagued with the Goods and Services Tax.

 
On every item that the Australians purchased, whether goods or services, suddenly there was a tax of 10 percent; prices of goods and services went up by 10 percent. The main beneficiary of the GST was the government.

The Malaysian context

In Australia, at least the people enjoy good healthcare services, good education, and despite a higher cost of living imposed by the GST, most of the Australians were able to pull through.

They could own a car, a house and at least enjoy decent pay even if they had to sweat it out on a blue collar job. A factory worker in Australia earns many times more than his counterpart in Malaysia.

Besides, the Australia currency was much stronger than Malaysia, and they could afford to enjoy imported goods from overseas. Malaysian currency is today one of the lowest in the region, after the Asian financial crisis.

While the Singaporean dollar has appreciated to match the Aussie dollar, the Malaysian ringgit is still lagging far behind.

In Malaysia, many of us belong to the middle income group. We are practically struggling to try to make ends meet. There is little disposable income for the entire family.

An ordinary Proton costs nearly twice the price of a Japanese car in Australia. A major portion of our income ends up being paid to the bank to service the bank loans for both a car and an apartment.

When our children grow up, it is not that they can easily enroll in a local university; even if they have a place, we have strong doubts about the quality of education in public universities.

We rather send our children to a public university in Australia, Singapore, United Kingdom or America.

The lower income group will suffer even more. With their already meagre income, they will be paying ten percent more on every item that they purchase when the GST is implemented.

Ironically, the money collected by the present government is not going back to the people. Instead, billions of ringgit have gone into a black hole. In fact, trillions have left the country through illegal means.

GST benefits the rich

There is this argument that the GST is good for the entire nation. The argument is that it is fair for everyone to pay taxes based on consumption, rather than on income.

At the moment, the argument is that only a minority of the population are paying taxes.The majority still do not pay taxes.

This, being the case, is the fault of the Income Revenue Board, but why should the government under Najib and BN impose the GST which will undoubtedly raise the cost of living in Malaysia?

It is also argued that, after the GST is introduced, the income taxes will be reduced. Since the money is collected from a broader base, the income taxes of the minority of the population can be reduced. This sounds good for some people, but honestly, I think it is only good for the rich.

For the rich, a 10 percent GST is nothing. After all, if he can afford spending a RM1,000 for a dinner table, he can surely afford RM100 for the GST.

But RM100 can last a poor family for one whole week, eating nothing but simple meals. There are some poor people that are only earning RM500 a month.

Overall, it is the rich and powerful who can lobby the government of the day to introduce laws that benefit themselves, while the poor rakyat have to bear the burden of such laws.

No thanks to the BN government, it has failed to understand how the rakyat has suffered through the years, while its ministers and their families are enjoying plundering the country.

Down with the BN government!