Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I think Senator Davey is talking about the heavy vehicle road user charges. Is that correct? Yes. Any decision to increase heavy vehicle charges is a collective decision of all state and territory governments, and no decision has been taken yet. Those charges are intended to recover the heavy vehicle share of road expenditure by all governments, and the principle that heavy vehicle operators should continue their share towards the cost of roads is shared by government and industry. At the previous Infrastructure and Transport Ministers Meeting, ministers agreed in principle, across all governments, to a three-year charging cycle following calls from industry for longer-term certainty, but no final decision has been reached on these charges.

In response to the specifics of the question as it relates to the Treasury portfolio as opposed to the infrastructure and transport portfolio, the senator asked whether any increase in these charges—on which a decision hasn't been made—would have an effect on inflation. That is one of the reasons why we have an economic plan which is designed to ensure that government, through our revenue and expenditure, is not adding to inflation in the economy. But inflation is not determined by one charge in one part of the economy. It's the entire budget response that this government will be cautious and careful about, because we do not want to make the inflation challenge—which is real in this country and is hurting households—stay around for any longer than is necessary to bring it back into the target rate and into a more normalised setting. That is exactly why we want to concentrate on our economic plan to ensure that we're doing what we need to do. (Time expired).