Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I do not want to be unparliamentary, Madam Acting Deputy President. If Senator Conroy has taken offence then I withdraw it, but it is extraordinary that a former representative of the TWU would not be prepared to put his position openly in the Senate. Nevertheless, let us go forward. I am certainly going to support my colleague on this motion to disallow the road user charges because they are totally unfair. This instrument brings back fuel excise indexation. The day after the Rudd government’s first budget the coalition opposition has to act to stop fuel excise indexation. This is the day after we heard that this budget has got to be an attack on inflation. Well, the people who are attacking inflation are on this side of the parliament. One of the great achievements of the coalition government was to bring to a stop the rise and rise of fuel excise and fuel prices, because of their impact on working families and inflation. Yet Labor are now bringing those back, so we have to ask: where are the great economic conservatives and inflation fighters of last night? They have gone down at the first hurdle. They have swapped sides in this chamber. It is the coalition opposition who are acting with prudent concern for working families and the economy by moving to disallow this instrument, not Labor.

The indexation of fuel excise was introduced by the Keating government. The Rudd government is bringing it back for the road transport industry, but the Rudd version uses a formula that will lock in a greater tax take than there was under the old CPI method. In February the Australian Transport Council agreed to a revised set of charges that will apply to Commonwealth registered heavy vehicles. These charges will be used as reference fees by the states and territories on their own heavy vehicles. In other words, this debate is about what costs are imposed upon Australia’s road freight industry. The costs have a direct effect not only on many small business truck operators and their productivity but also on the final price paid by consumers for the goods being transported—in particular, food. In addition, there are environmental concerns. It is important to get the policy settings right to provide incentives for lower emission vehicles, and Labor fail again on that issue.

The two key elements of the charge structure that apply to the road freight sector are registration fees and the diesel fuel excise system, which is known as the road user charge system. The heavy vehicle registration charges contain significant increases to be implemented over three years from July 2008. Hopefully, the Senate will offer enough support to stop this situation. The key feature is the way in which the government will determine these charges by applying an annual road cost adjustment formula. This formula will be a particularly expensive formula for Australia’s road freight industry due to the rising cost of materials associated with road construction and maintenance. This means that registration costs are going to go up at a higher rate than the CPI. Close to 70 per cent of Australia’s truckies, and all of those at the heavier end of the industry, are going to be paying more tax. This means that there will be a rise in costs associated with road expenditure that will eventually flow through to consumers. Productivity is affected because the costs agreed to by the Australian Transport Council fall heavily on highly productive multicombination vehicles such as B-doubles and B-triples. For example, the registration charge for a B-double will increase from $8,041 to $14,340, including the prime mover charge of $7,050. The B-triple charge will skyrocket to $20,340, including the prime mover charge of $7,050.

One of the first actions of the government when it came into power in parliament was not the taking of a lot of initiatives for rural and regional Australia but the imposition of this very substantial increase in charges on the most efficient sector of the road freight industry. The government’s fee structure will reduce the incentive for operators to use highly productive vehicles. Operators will be inclined to stick with semitrailers, which are less efficient. You have got to take into consideration the concerns about greenhouse gases and climate change. The government has agreed to a change in the charge arrangements that will actually encourage more greenhouse gas emitting vehicles to be on the road.

At its February meeting the Australian Transport Council decided to increase the road user charge, or diesel excise, from 19.633c per litre to 21c per litre. This occurs by reducing the amount of rebate going to on-road diesel users. Most importantly, this fuel excise increase will be indexed using the same formula that is used for heavy vehicle registration charges. Seventy-five per cent of Australia’s domestic freight is moved on our roads by truck, but the Rudd Labor government has just raised transport charges on many of the country’s 365,000 trucks that are operated by small businesses. Those businesses will be the first to suffer by being slammed with increased charges. But it will not stop there. The charges will be passed on through higher consumer costs for everyday items that people need to buy—food, groceries, medicines and clothing—and for building, water tanks and all kinds of products.

The government have espoused that they want cheaper groceries and have promised the Australian electorate that they would have cheaper groceries, but this will have the opposite effect. This is inflationary and this is pushing the cost of groceries up. It does not matter how many commissions or committees you hold, what advice you give to the ACCC or whether you have a grocery ombudsman, it will not make the slightest bit of difference—you have implemented a policy which is going to increase the price of groceries and the price of fuel.

We have a government here saying, ‘We’re going to do something about rising prices,’ and then they slug a new tax that raises the cost of getting groceries to the markets and to the consumers. Labor state and territory governments’ revenue will rise substantially as a result of the increased fuel tax and registration charges with the annual revenue stream to Labor governments growing by $168 million. The fuel tax taped to Labor states and territories will rise from $1.146 billion in 2007-08 to $1.226 billion in 2010—an increase of $80 million. The increase in heavy vehicle registration charges will push up the tax take for Labor state and territory governments from $638 million to $727 million in the same period—an increase of $88 million.

Once again, the Labor federal government is acting as a bagman for the state Labor governments. The state governments spend and spend, borrow and spend, mismanage their health, education, roads and water. ‘But don’t worry fellas, we’re coming to the rescue. The federal Labor government will help you raise revenue and fill your coffers.’ The government have even put billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money towards delivering infrastructure projects which the state governments have failed to provide. COAG—the council of Australia’s state and federal Labor governments—will sit down and divide the booty amongst themselves. The biggest winners from last night’s budget are the state Labor governments. The new COAG Reform Fund is especially designed to channel funding to the states. Labor have dealt themselves billions of dollars to keep themselves in power for as long as the federal taxpayers’ moneys last. Talk about political market power. We certainly saw it here last night.

The worst flaw in the Rudd government’s road user charge scheme is that the money collected from the registration or the fuel excise does not have to be spent on better roads, road maintenance or transport infrastructure for heavy trucks. It just goes into a fund that is then transferred to the state Labor governments. There is no guarantee that any of this money will be spent on roads. Who suffers the most from these increases? It is the people that are the farthest from the marketplace: regional and rural Australians. They are the ones who are bearing the brunt of Labor’s increased charges and decreased commitments to rural and regional Australia.

We are a big country. We cover a huge geographical area. The government have a responsibility for those hardworking Australians who live thousands and thousands of miles from here. We want them to live a decent life with access to basic goods at a fair price. It is no wonder we want, and we will move, a disallowance motion. If ever there was a piece of legislation that deserved to be disallowed, this is it. This Senate would be totally irresponsible if it did not move a disallowance motion to this piece of legislation that is going to penalise rural and regional Australians more than any other Australian. Everyone will go in the net, but the ones that live furthest from the market will be affected the greatest. This regulation fails that responsibility and should be disallowed. I will have great pleasure in supporting the disallowance motion moved by my colleague.