By GREG ANSLEY
CANBERRA - It began at midnight, gripping first the nation's buses, trains and toll booths.
At 3 am, it spread to the first changes of shifts in taxi fleets in Sydney and Melbourne.
And as the rest of Australia awoke, the nightmare became real: GST is here.
No more Joe Cocker rasping out Prime Minister John Howard's promise to unchain our hearts.
No more prophecies of a golden age or doom for all, depending on your politics.
Fourteen years after New Zealand took the plunge, Howard has fulfilled his election promise and introduced, against enormous odds, the biggest and most complete overhaul of taxation since the original colonies became a federation a century ago.
This morning, like the rest of Australia, Howard will be biting his nails.
No one knows yet the full impact of the new GST, despite the tsunami of projections, estimations, guides, promises and warnings.
Howard's GST is a horribly complicated creature and the popularity of both the tax and Howard slumped in direct relationship to the proximity of its introduction.
It brought the Coalition Government close to implosion and has set even Howard's natural allies - business and farmers - at his throat.
Business confidence has plummeted and five days out from its introduction more than one-third of corporate Australia told consultants Ernst & Young that they were struggling to get ready in time.
Suburban Australia has been simply swamped by the mass of conflicting and often downright scary information, at the same time frantically analysing the merits of joining a health fund before close of business yesterday, or face a 2 per cent a year lifetime penalty on health insurance fees for every uninsured year over the age of 30.
Even Joe Cocker, who earned handsome royalties from the use of his song Unchain My Heart in the Government's GST advertising campaign, had second thoughts about being associated with the tax.
Howard spent an incredible $A424 million ($547 million) promoting the new tax, in addition to $A500 million allocated to business costs involved in the transition.
And what does Joe and Joelene Average get for all this?
Confused, mainly.
Wage and salary earners will get tax cuts and pensions and other benefits will rise - but not enough for many.
About 80,000 of Australia's lowest-paid workers will be worse off, tens of thousands more will receive just a few dollars extra, and almost one million students will be charged more for their university loans despite education's GST exemption.
The extra cash in pocket will also be deeply eroded by higher interest rates, inflation and, despite Howard's fervent promises, petrol prices.
Bad enough in the cities, but in rural and outback areas this will hit hard: in the Northern Territory the cost of filling a car rose by 4c a litre today.
If Australians are renting their homes, their rents will be GST-free - even if they live in multi-million dollar apartments.
But if they are down on their luck, living in boarding houses or caravan parks, their rents rose 5.5 per cent today, barely offset by a last-minute compensation package.
If they are women, they can get GST-exempt food for their infants, but now pay 10 per cent extra for their tampons.
And with the mish-mash of exemptions and changes forced upon the Government by the Democrats in the Senate, shopping today becomes a truly new experience.
As in New Zealand, the replacement of existing taxes with GST means some prices went up and others went down.
Basic and fresh foods are GST-exempt. Prepared foods attract GST.
But not so fast.
If bread is glazed, it is GST-exempt; if it has icing, it goes up 10 per cent.
Yoghurt for eating is GST-free, frozen yoghurt is not.
Bones for the dog are charged GST, bones for soup are not.
Carbonated mineral water attracts GST, uncarbonated mineral water does not.
Soya sausages are GST-free, soya chips are not .
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