New South Wales rego hike.

[vztrt]

http://smh.drive.com.au/motor-news/a...0304-pl3d.html

A rather weighty tax issue

MATT CAMPBELL AND DANIEL DASEY
March 8, 2010

It just doesn't seem fair.

The state government recently announced it planned to slug motorists up to $30 more on their registration if their vehicle weighed more than 975 kilograms.

The so-called weight tax is to apply to all vehicles, with the exception of hybrids in a nod to their smaller environmental impact.

All good in theory but it emerges a V8 limousine and a supercharged V6 four-wheel-drive are among several high-performance beasts dodging the tax because they have hybrid capacity.

First up is the Porsche Cayenne Hybrid S, a two-tonne-plus 4WD and one of the fastest off-roaders on the market. It is joined by the Lexus LS600hL - a V8-powered hybrid weighing almost twice as much as a Toyota Corolla and delivering the performance of a V12.

While the Porsche and the Lexus offer significant fuel savings compared with cars of similar performance, they are thirstier than dozens of budget small cars that will be slugged with the new weight tax.

The tax is specifically designed to fund the $50 billion transport plan that was created to fix NSW's sub-standard public transport and clogged roads.