Re: 7-30 report on fuel excise

[Bruce Greening <bgreeni@ibm.net>]

Maurie Daly wrote:

> Dont know whether anyone saw this report last night,but it was mainly about
> the effects of the reduction in diesel fuel excise and the effects this would
> have in regards to the road freight industry.
> The report was mainly about the increased amounts of diesel fuel that will be
> consumed by trucks , and its effects on health and pollution.
> However one disturbing fact that came up in the program was in relation to an
> interview with a representative of the Road transport industry who indicated
> that the fuel excise reduction would allow the road freight industry to get
> back up to 50% of NRCs current annual loading.
> Its not secret that the effects of the fuel excise reduction , whilst it
> benefits rail , benefits road much more simply because road is a much greater
> user of diesel fuel than is rail , and fuel excise is the only tax that road
> users have to pay, whereas rail users have to pay the tax plus rail access
> charges , (also a tax).
> Rail Access charges plus fuel costs are now Rails highest cost component,
> greater than salaries.
>
> A lot of rail commentators rightly indicate the enormous imbalance in the
> amounts of funding for road and rail , and point to the fact that Govts need
> to spend much more on rail , mainly in the areas of infrastructure
> improvements.
> Whilst this is common sense , it doesnt however in the short term , do much
> about the running costs for Rail Operators, ie they will still have to pay
> fuel excise and track access charges,so any benefits from infrastructure
> improvements will be only incremental and long term.
> A better solution , in the short term would be to spend nothing on improving
> rail infrastructure , and simply waive all track access charges , for say 5 to
> 10 years.
> This puts rail roughly on a level playing field with trucks as far as daily
> operating costs are concerned.
> It doesnt of course address the imbalance of the infrastructure spending
> imbalance,but being pragmatic and given recent history , I cant see the Feds
> or anyone else , either Liberal or Labor doing anything about the Neville
> report.
> Just another rail inquiry that will gather dust.
>
> cheers
> MD
>

At a presentation to RAC managers on Tues night the CEO of Freight rail indicated
the new arrangements would give road a 6% advantage V rail.....That would wipe out
a lot of rails traffic.

Maybe with some private players now coming into the industry we may see some more
effective loybing of govt.

--
Bruce L. Greening
bgreeni@ibm.net
Sydney