ATA: freeze heavy vehicle charges

Australia's peak representative body for the truck industry, the Australian Trucking Association, has urged the Government to place a freeze on heavy vehicle charges for the 2015-16 financial year, to partially offset the overcharging that has occurred for the last eight years.

In releasing the ATA submission to the National Transport Commission in response to the latter's annual review of heavy vehicle road user charges, ATA CEO Chris Melham (pictured) said the current status quo of overcharging needed to be addressed.

"The heavy vehicle industry pays for its use of the roads through heavy vehicle registration fees and a road user charge on fuel, currently 26.14 cents per litre," he said.

"The industry has been overcharged since 2007 because the NTC's charging model underestimates the number of trucks on the road. The NTC recognises that the model is flawed, but Australia's state and territory transport ministers have not yet implemented the NTC's options for changing it.

"As a result, the model is still being used to develop flawed heavy vehicle charges, with more than 50,000 heavy vehicles on Australia's roads missing from the 2015-16 calculations.

"The NTC has recommended a 0.6 per cent increase in heavy vehicle charges. If the increase occurs, the heavy vehicle industry will be overcharged by some $117 million in 2015-16.

While the Government did in fact freeze the road user charge last year, the ATA is now calling upon it to maintain a freeze for the next financial year.

"The Australian Government Competition Policy Review, released last month, recommended the Government change the road pricing system and reduce existing indirect road user charges," said Mr Melham.

"As a first step towards considering this recommendation, governments need to make sure the existing system of fuel and registration charges does not overcharge the industry."

Click here to view the full ATA submission.