It was abolished here in 1981 because it raised little revenue, was very complex and expensive to administer, but primarily because it was percieved as unfair due to the asset being bought with already taxed money. We have added a GST (VAT) since so it doesn't seem to have been unworkable in any way shape or form.I don't think its just semantics. Its the only rational (IMO) way to look at taxation because if you start looking at tax as something that is tied to the actually #s of money itself, it leads to some wonky conclusions like the example I mentioned above where someone doing work on my house shouldn't get taxed because the money I paid them with "was already taxed". I find it to be an irrational and a pragmatically impossible way to look at taxes. Taxes happen with new income to a new person. That's the only fair and only practical way for taxes to work.
How to structure things like an inheritance tax to make it fair for the average middle class person is a different issue but claiming its "double taxation" really doesn't make any sense nor is that a workable way to view taxation in general.
The only thing that would be more unpopular than an inheritance tax here would be abolishing being able to treat an investment property like every other investment i.e. claiming costs including interest and depreciation against the income. It of course contributes to the housing crisis, although the almost total lack of social/low cost housing is the biggest factor, but it is so baked in to middle Australia's investment/retirement planning that it would be electoral suicide to propose changes. Indeed it was for the Liberals in the 1993 election that they should have won at a canter.