Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

As I indicated before, the opposition will be supporting the government’s amendments because they have picked up amendments that had been flagged by the opposition. We will not now be proceeding with our amendments because the government’s amendments to its amendment bill pick up those things. Can I just make it clear to the chamber, though, that what we are doing today is agreeing to a legislative increase of the road user charge from 19-odd cents a litre to 21c a litre. The opposition is totally opposed to any increases in taxes and we did a bit of soul searching before coming to the decision that we would support what is effectively an increase in tax by the Labor government. We have recognised that a lot of work needs to be done on the roads insofar as the transport industry is concerned. We have particularly recognised that a lot of money needs to be spent on rest areas, or truck stops—call them what you will. So, on the basis that this increase in tax will be spent appropriately to help the trucking industry, we have—as I say, somewhat reluctantly—agreed to the increase. The bill and the amendments moved by the government provide that the rate will, I think on the bill receiving royal assent, go up to 21c a litre from the 19-odd cents that it now is.

In the other amendments that the opposition will continue to press, we want to make sure that, in the future, any increases in the road user charge are spent on these rest stops. I do not want to go through our amendments now, except to flag that the reason we are agreeing with the 21c is that we want the bill to say that any future increases must be spent on rest areas. We also want to provide that the road user charges do ensure a degree of harmonisation between the various state regimes, which currently are all over shop. There are some stupid examples that have been mentioned in this chamber by many senators over a long period of time. We want to make sure that that harmonisation stands. So our amendments again ensure that the government are only going to get this extra money if they help the trucking industry with some of the difficulties they have encountered.

We have also agreed with this on the basis that indexation is never, ever to be used. The government’s amendments, which we support, just say that there is ministerial discretion. We have an amendment coming up later that puts it beyond doubt that, in looking at future increases, the minister must not use any reference to indexation. We are also going to move an amendment later that reflects that, in giving support for this, we want it confirmed that the transport minister will not make more than one determination a year. Hopefully he will not make any determinations—so it will not go up—but, if he does make a determination to increase it, there cannot be more than one increase a year. I think the minister will tell us later that that is the intention. My argument will be: if that is the intention, let us put it in the act so that it is clear to everyone.

The third amendment we are putting forward—and I will explain it now because it is relevant to the whole thing—is an amendment that says, because this is now a disallowable instrument, we do not want the situation where the government brings in an instrument that says the road user charge is increased by 1c to 22c and the Senate and the House of Representatives have 15 sitting days to disallow that increase. The 15 sitting days, as we all know, may take two, three or four months to reach. We want to make sure that the government do not start collecting the additional 1c from day one, which they are entitled to do under the ministerial determination, and then find two months later that the Senate has knocked it off and they have to give back the 1c a litre to anyone who has paid it over that period of time. This is similar to the alcopops issue, as senators might recall: ‘If the Senate knocks these off, what do the government do with the money they have collected?’ With our third amendment we want to say, ‘If you put it up, fine, but let’s leave the collection until after the 15 days allowed for the Senate to disallow it have expired.’ Again, that seems sensible and appropriate.

I have mentioned those opposition amendments because it is on the basis of those amendments that the opposition has agreed to this increase in the road user charge at the present time.