So Amazon is going to block

us from using their international website?
Now given some people's ability to avoid paying tax while still believing they have some sort of right to access the services paid for through taxation I don't have a problem with the GST - "goods and services tax" (VAT to readers in Upover).
I do have a problem with not being able to access goods and services.
One of the things about the internet has been the proliferation of on-line shopping sites. Over the last decade Downunderites have at last been able to access some of the goods and services readily available in many other parts of the world. "Ebay!" "Amazon!" comes the cry when someone wants a motorbike part, a woodworking tool, or ski-clothing and many other things.
There is a quieter and even more earnest sigh of relief when a craftsperson realises that yes, Etsy does have someone who stocks that  craft tool or supply or an academic type realises that Book Depository can supply an urgently required book.
This isn't just about on-line shopping convenience by any means. It is about accessing things at a reasonable price within a reasonable time frame.
I have explained elsewhere in this blog the problem with trying to order books from the local indie bookshop. I am a passionate supporter of the local bookshop but it isn't always possible to wait six months for something and, always, pay more - sometimes almost twice as much. 
I wanted a craft tool recently. I went off to the only place on my side of the city that might stock such things. No, they didn't have it - didn't even know what it was. The woman tried to be helpful as she rang the only other place that might stock something like that. No, they knew nothing either. 
I went on-line. There it was. It was cheap. It would be here from China within five days - or so the website said. It was here in six but I wasn't going to quibble.
I mentioned this to someone who repairs all sorts of things for a living. On the side he also repairs electrical items which are then given to people in need. He often needs small parts. Recently he needed a tool or some such thing. At the local plumbing supplier he saw what he needed but they didn't have any in stock. It would, he was told, be "a couple of months" before any more arrived from overseas. The price would be $97 plus GST.
      "I went to b......Amazon Cat, found a place in the US and paid $US19 for the exact same thing - no postage."
Of course he was going to get it from there. Like me he has no problem with paying GST but he does have a problem with waiting weeks or months and paying what would have been three times the cost.
We have a problem here. We have a relatively small population - about twenty-six million people spread out across the continent. We tend to be isolated from the rest of the world because of our geographical location. For years this was a genuine problem. It took ships months to get here. Goods were sometimes scarce. People could and did hike up prices. Now it is almost a cultural thing to have to pay for that isolation. 
I have twice bought books from Amazon - books that the local indie shop was not even allowed to import "because they might be published here one day". Sorry, I couldn't wait for that. They were not novels I didn't need to read. They were tools for my work. 
I have bought yarn from overseas - yarn it is impossible to get here. Of course I could simply not knit with that sort of  yarn. I could go with the less than best quality yarn at highly inflated prices that comes from overseas anyway.  I am afraid I have gone for the much better quality yarn at lower cost and imported it. Even if I had paid GST on it the yarn would be cheaper than the locally available yarn.
So, it's more than just about paying GST.