The Australian trucking industry is eyeing off a meeting of transport ministers next month as an opportunity to prevent the introduction of new heavy vehicle charges.
Industry associations are lobbying ministers to rethink their decision to increase the fuel excise by 10.4% and raise registration fees by more than 20% in some cases.
Only Western Australia and the Northern Territory voted against the new round of charges during the March 21 Standing Council on Transport and Infrastructure (SCOTI) meeting, deciding instead to introduce much lower fees.
But since the vote the fell during the Queensland election, that state did not vote on the charges. Furthermore, South Australia has signalled it will address the industry’s concerns on registration fees when SCOTI next meets on May 18.
“They’re going to go to the meeting with at least a couple of ministers saying: ‘Well, we don’t like what we did a month ago, collectively’. And who knows, there may be some calling for a change,” Queensland Trucking Association CEO Peter Garske says.
“I mean this is all uncharted waters really, and there is an opportunity, clearly, for industry to strike while the iron’s hot with the minsters on the east coast and that’s certainly what I’ll be doing with the new minister.”
A spokeswoman for South Australia transport minister Patrick Conlon confirmed industry has raised its grievances about the impending charges, particularly concerning road trains where prices will rise by more than 21%.
“The minister has taken on those concerns and in the next SCOTI meeting next month I believe that they [ministers] are going to discuss it again and take those industry concerns to the meeting,” the spokeswoman says.
“Industry concerns are specifically about the road trains because they’re the ones that have received a significant increase.”
The cost of registering a double road-train will increase from A$11,438 to A$13,857 on July 1, with a triple road-train rising A$2914 to A$16,607.
Australian Livestock and Rural Transporters Association (ALRTA) executive director, Philip Halton, says the group has held a number of meetings with transport ministers.
“There won’t be many road train operators who can say they’ve seen a 21% increase in spending on any of the roads they drive,” Halton says.
“Most dirt roads, outback roads and far-inland regional roads don’t look like they are improving at all, and they’re certainly not 21% better than last year.”
While the charges are due to take effect on July 1, the Northern Territory decided on a 3.7% increase across the board from January 1, 2013.
Western Australia settled on 5.7%, with the price rises kicking in at the start of the new financial year.
Federally, the Opposition says it will look at moving a disallowance motion against the 2.4 cents-per-litre increase in the fuel tax.
The price rise means the fuel tax credit will drop to 12.6 cents-per-litre on July 1 unless the disallowance motion gathers enough support.
