Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Minister for Transport and Regional Services) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. Everyone acknowledges the keen interest that the member for O’Connor takes in the transport industry. Like all members on this side of the House, he is gravely concerned about reports that the states will proceed with increases in truck registration fees. I am delighted to inform the House today that the Australian government has decided that the road user charge paid by road transport operators will be unchanged this year. I plan to bring to the parliament very soon a declaration setting the road user charge at 19.633c a litre from 1 July 2006. That is the same figure that has applied for the last five years. So, for six years now, the Commonwealth has frozen the road user charge. At the same time as we froze the fuel excise level we also implemented a freeze on the road user charge. This decision will save the road transport industry at least $200 million this year alone and, of course, that saving will increase year by year.

In addition, the federal government is about to abolish the arbitrary boundaries that were applied to the on-road fuel excise rebate and extend the scheme to petrol powered as well as diesel powered vehicles. Those changes will save the road transport industry about $130 million a year. With the federal government taking such a strong lead, it is disappointing that all of the states and territories are talking about putting up road transport registration fees. That is despite the fact that the National Transport Commission has established that there is already over-recovery from the registration fees for the largest part of the transport fleet. Most are already paying to the states more than their cost to the provision of infrastructure.

Everyone accepts that the transport industry should pay its own way, and the industry is more than happy to do that as well. But, in the absence of offsetting linked expenditure by the states and territories for roads, I do not think there is any compelling case for the Commonwealth to increase the Australian government’s federal interstate registration scheme. We have no plans to increase our own registration fees. The states should follow suit and give the road transport industry a fair go in these times of high fuel prices and heavy costs in the industry.

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