Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you. If you don't want me to respond, please don't start it! Roughly $1 million per kilometre, in 2012 terms, is too much of an ask for the 650-odd local councils in Australia. They do need a new funding model, and it does need some sort of conversation from both the state and federal governments, that is not only about highways, is not only about state and regional roads, but is also about the status of and the funding commitment to local roads.

I am going against this disallowance motion, not because it came from the Leader of the Nationals, and not because he has failed to get me this letter from the New South Wales National Party leader, who voted for this increase in road user charges; it is because I want to start to get better outcomes in comprehensive tax reform and a greater commitment from political leaders, federal and state, on some of the issues that have been talked about for too long and on which the conversation has failed to progress.

In my previous contribution I started to talk about urban congestion charging. It was recommended to government and opposition by Treasury, that the time has come for the conversation to begin on how we start to introduce, over time, something akin to urban congestion charging—as per the Henry tax reform report, and as per most who are trying to get better outcomes in road use funding models and the contribution back to things like public transport and local roads.

So if the idea is to once again just load up the heavy-transport sector, to once again load up those who produce the food and move the food—and move 80 per cent of the retail product to the homes of Australia—I am not interested, unless it is a comprehensive conversation around how we deliver better transport funding models across the board. We cannot keep picking off the truckies and leaving the rest of the conversation unaddressed. I know there are many in this House who will see that as political fodder, and probably attack me in the west of Sydney and in Melbourne, but if we are going to load up one sector, if we are going to load up regional Australia, if we are going to load up the trucking industry, we have to have a much better conversation across the board about how we tax and transfer in the transport sector, and in the public transport sector, than we have today.

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