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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-07-18 Daily Xml
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NATIONAL HEAVY VEHICLES REGISTRATION FEES

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (16:15): I move:

That the regulations under the Motor Vehicles Act 1959 concerning national heavy vehicles registration fees increases, made on 31 May 2012 and laid on the table of this council on 13 June 2012, be disallowed.

I do not move this motion without serious thought. It has not been moved lightly; that is, the disallowance of the heavy vehicle registration fees.

The Hon. R.I. Lucas: So, some of your motions are moved lightly?

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: No, none of them are moved lightly. Most of them are moved with a heavy mind and, when the government's budget is going to be affected, with a heavy heart. On this occasion, I cannot have a heavy heart for the government because the trucking—

The Hon. R.I. Lucas interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! You might want to stick to heavy vehicles.

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: Thank you, sir. I get a little bit misled by the Hon. Rob Lucas now and again. The fact of the matter is that, to be very serious about this, the trucking industry is paramount to South Australia. In fact, given the geography of South Australia and the vast distances, without a viable trucking industry this state would grind to a halt very quickly, particularly when it comes to rural and regional South Australia. Therefore, many of our constituents, and myself as a legislator, have been very concerned about increased costs in the trucking industry.

Before talking about the motion itself, I would remind members that the trucking industry faces other imposts that will make it more difficult for profitability: one, higher fuel costs and the fuel differential between metropolitan and regional areas—members may recall that in the last Foley budget they cut the differential of state discounts between metropolitan and regional areas, and therefore there is an even larger differential now for country people—and two, the 1 July 2014 additional of diesel to the carbon tax mixture of the Gillard government.

I read with interest a May circular of the National Transport Commission, which is the intergovernmental body responsible for transport issues, funded 65 per cent from the states and territories and 35 per cent from the federal government. One of the National Transport Commission's responsibilities is to set national heavy vehicle registration fees. The May circular of the National Transport Commission stated that there would be a community service obligation rebate on the new registration fees to offset the impact of the latest fee increases with respect to country or rural double road train operators, they would receive a 25 per cent discount, and the new rural triple road train operators would receive a 30 per cent discount.

Either the National Transport Commission has now reneged on providing a community service obligation payment to country operators, which is in breach of its May circular promising the same, or the state government has pocketed that community service obligation without passing it on, since transport operators advise my office that as yet they have not been made aware of the means by which they can either claim the rebate or as country operators they have a differential registration benefit from the rebate being built into their registration cost.

All of these registration and fuel costs for the trucking industry are clearly passed on to the purchasers of freight, in many cases small businesses and farmers. A small business might, theoretically, but most likely not, be able to pass that cost on to their customers, but clearly a farmer cannot. With these so-called national fees it is interesting to note that Western Australia and the Northern Territory have gone their own way on these, imposing a lesser fee. It seems that those two governments, and to a similar extent Tasmania, do not want to toe the line on the National Transport Commission policy.

We will be debating the Hon. Stephen Wade's motion about interjurisdictional agreements later on. This is a classic example of where ministers go interstate to sign off and then bring in imposts that are not in the state's interests. With the registration fee differential, some trucking businesses that operate in both states are clearly seriously considering registering interstate. I know already that where trucking industries have depots in several states they are choosing more and more to register the majority of the trucks interstate. I am not going to name the companies that I am well aware of. I have raised this with the government before and it is up to the government to pursue it. You cannot blame those companies for doing that when you are looking at thousands and thousands of dollars per truck in cheaper registration. In fact, it will now be $6,000 a year less to register a B-double in Western Australia than it will be in South Australia.

I note with interest the work of the Australian Trucking Association in a paper published in the last month, where it analysed the current National Transport Commission fee structure enshrined in this regulation which I am now seeking to disallow. It says that South Australia would recover $108 million under these charges even though the amount attributable to South Australia is only $71 million. So what is happening with Treasury, as I understand it, is that there will be a windfall gain to the state Treasury and the coffers therefore of $37 million.

It also found that it would require the Northern Territory to recover over double what should actually be attributable to trucks registered in the Northern Territory. Western Australia would over-recover almost half of what was attributable to its trucks. In fact, every state and territory except the ACT would over-recover what the Australian Trucking Association calculated was actually necessary. Nationwide, you are talking of an over-recovery of $409 million. Naturally, the trucking industry is very upset about a revenue scenario through registration costs that is said to reflect trucks' impact on roads but in reality represents revenue raising from an already stretched industry facing a big hit from the carbon tax in mid-2014.

The last point is that I understand the industry here in South Australia has sought to work cooperatively with the government to achieve the revenue figures it wants. It is not as if the trucking industry is not prepared to carry its fair share. It is somewhere between the $71 million actually required figure, according to the ATA (Australian Trucking Association), and the $108 million projected figure, but a figure that the government is seeking to raise through the fee structure represented in this regulation. However, the structure proposed by the industry sees the pain spread more evenly and not as dramatically across the trucking industry in South Australia.

In conclusion, I call upon the Weatherill government: (1) to work with the trucking industry here in South Australia to achieve a more reasonable outcome; (2) to chase up where the National Transport Commission's community service obligations payments for country trucking operators have gone; and (3) to come up with a fairer, more reasonable fee structure that does not generate a windfall gain for state and federal governments.

At this point in time and probably more than ever in recent history, we need to look after our businesses. Transport is the backbone of all businesses in this state. We cannot get our farmers' produce off at a reasonable price if they are going to be forced to change the size of trucks that come to pick up the grain, milk, beef and other produce. I am appealing to the government to revisit this. I say to my colleagues that the government should have plenty of time to start to open transparent dialogue with the trucking industry over the next couple of months.

I give notice to the house that if the minister has not addressed and fixed this matter with the trucking industry in the interests of all South Australians—because this will go right through to the shelf in the retail sector and hit again all South Australian constituents if the government is not prepared and does not see the wisdom in doing this—then whilst I do not very often move disallowance motions that are going to affect their revenue, on this occasion I will be appealing to my colleagues to consider this and put it to a vote on Wednesday 5 September.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.M. Gazzola.

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