Max Spaghetti
Member
Which is how it should be, because I'm pretty sure the majority of the Australian people don't want to either
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State based EV road user charge (Overturned 18/10/23)
- Thread starter jamesgo
- Start date
AussieOwner
White M3 2021 LR
Not sure what data your looking at because the ABS seems to disagree with you.
Max Spaghetti
Member
Fuel taxes by country: Alternative Fuels Data Center: Maps and Data - Fuel Taxes by Country
Australia is actually quite low compared to a lot of (predominantly European) countries.
However other countries (like USA and Canada) are much lower than us. Canada has a similar economy to Australia - large country / low population - so a fuel excise (or road user charge) isn't the only way to fund roads.
We don't have a "user pays" system for many other services and infrastructure that is provided to the community by public funds - we don't pay to take the kids to the park, for example. Public education and public health are provided from consolidated revenue. Yes, those without kids are subsidising those with kids - so what? Likewise, roads do not have to be "user pays" - even if it means those without cars are subsidising those with cars. Their food and supplies are still being delivered by road.
We could just continue with the status quo - which is that fossil fuels attract an excise, and road use by BEV's does not. Call it an incentive based system to encourage adoption of BEV's. The current Federal Government is probably quite happy to do that, because unlike the previous Government, they are actually in favour of a transition to BEV's.
All they have to do politically is just quietly stop referring to the fuel excise as "contributing to the funding of roads". It never did, directly, anyway. Just let the excise gradually morph into a "fossil fuel tax". Just don't make the mistake of calling it a "carbon tax" because that phrase doesn't wash politically in Australia.
Once it becomes a noticeable hole in the budget (it wouldn't be yet), that hole just needs to be gradually filled with an alternative source of revenue (or, God forbid, maybe reduce spending).
Just need to make sure that whatever contribution the Feds used to make to the States to fund their roads continues, and the States actually have nothing to complain about - as far as the States are concerned, there isn't a problem. Funding any deepening hole in the fuel excise revenue remains purely a Federal concern.
Australia is actually quite low compared to a lot of (predominantly European) countries.
However other countries (like USA and Canada) are much lower than us. Canada has a similar economy to Australia - large country / low population - so a fuel excise (or road user charge) isn't the only way to fund roads.
We don't have a "user pays" system for many other services and infrastructure that is provided to the community by public funds - we don't pay to take the kids to the park, for example. Public education and public health are provided from consolidated revenue. Yes, those without kids are subsidising those with kids - so what? Likewise, roads do not have to be "user pays" - even if it means those without cars are subsidising those with cars. Their food and supplies are still being delivered by road.
We could just continue with the status quo - which is that fossil fuels attract an excise, and road use by BEV's does not. Call it an incentive based system to encourage adoption of BEV's. The current Federal Government is probably quite happy to do that, because unlike the previous Government, they are actually in favour of a transition to BEV's.
All they have to do politically is just quietly stop referring to the fuel excise as "contributing to the funding of roads". It never did, directly, anyway. Just let the excise gradually morph into a "fossil fuel tax". Just don't make the mistake of calling it a "carbon tax" because that phrase doesn't wash politically in Australia.
Once it becomes a noticeable hole in the budget (it wouldn't be yet), that hole just needs to be gradually filled with an alternative source of revenue (or, God forbid, maybe reduce spending).
Just need to make sure that whatever contribution the Feds used to make to the States to fund their roads continues, and the States actually have nothing to complain about - as far as the States are concerned, there isn't a problem. Funding any deepening hole in the fuel excise revenue remains purely a Federal concern.
The taxes of those of us without kids are subsidising the education of the kids whose taxes will eventually pay their age pensions, and the ballooning medicare and aged care budget spending that occurs when someone becomes elderly.
It's an investment in the future that needs to pay off.
Pity it's been hijacked by activists who are hell-bent on doing anything but educating kids into becoming productive taxpaying citizens - but that's a discussion for somewhere else.
Clean air tax?
Offset it against lower health spending on the effects of local air pollution?
Yep. This was a cash grab on Victoria's part to replace a revenue stream they haven't had since Ha vs NSW (25 years ago). They were preying on the ignorance of people to not notice that. And they were hoping that it'd stick so that fuel/road taxes permanently got transferred from federal to state coffers. But we've been over this already.
Yes, which makes perfect sense since that's where the spending obligations for roads lie.
So I still have to stump up tax for the compliance officers used to check petrol stations?
Except the ABS does agree with me, because that’s where I got the data from.
First the commute to work ≠ average distance driven per year. In any event, the data you cite actually reinforces my point - very little difference between average commutes in the capital cities, and everywhere else in the state.
This is the data I was referring to:
Survey of Motor Vehicle Use, Australia, 12 Months ended 30 June 2020
This data shows that the average distance driven per year in the low population density states is not higher than in the lower population density states, which is what you’d expect if regional/rural people drove materially longer distances on average.
Victorians (the state with the highest population density) drive on average more per year than drivers in every other state and territory except for NT. And NT is only 100 km more p.a. than VIC.
Max Spaghetti
Member
I'm sorry, but how does a State vs State statistic demonstrate that rural drivers drive less or more than urban drivers? I don't see the connection.
I live rural - not that far from Melbourne, but rural. My work commute is 120km per day, my partner's work (local) is 45km per day, and the school drop off/pickup (no bus) is 50km per day, and just to go get milk or bread is 12km return. We clock up at least 60,000km per year between us just going about our work/school/life. And that is not unusual for the people who live in our area. In fact, other neighbours do more km. My Tesla clocked up 20,000km around its 6 month birthday.
Does the average metropolitan family do 60,000km per year?
I don't even consider myself to be particularly rural.
The real question is whether your 12km bread is any good. Instead of living rural vs suburban vs urban, perhaps you could rate the various breads you get on a bread quality index scale of 1/10, 10 being the best. Then you divide the distance to the bread by the bqi. So if your 12km bread is bqi=10 German dark rye multigrain, freshly baked daily, that bread is really only 1.2km away. But if it's a bqi=1 white spongy toast bread baked a decade ago and frozen in an indonesian warehouse since then, it really is 12km away.
ABS Data is across a large percentage of the population. There will always be cases above and below average.
Clearly not as a “average” because that’s not supported by the data. But some people on urban fringes would drive that much. Some people commute to Sydney jobs from Wollongong, the Blue Mountains, the Central Coast, and even Newcastle (which is insane). That’s a 150-300 km round trip up to 5 days per week, or up to 72,000 km per year just on commuting, excluding 4 weeks annual leave. Then add any weekend, holiday and non-work driving. It adds up. But they are outliers.
You say your experience is not that “unusual” to others you know in your region, and I’m not doubting it is. But that is inherently a familiarity or discounting bias. There are plenty of people in regional areas who mostly spend their lives around town or going to Church on Sundays and doing less than 5000 km per year. There must be, otherwise the averages would not be where they are.
Always be wary of using personal experience to extrapolate an “average” on anything. There’s 20 million cars on Australian roads…
EcoCloudIT
Active Member
Semi rural
5 cars - 4 cars 25,000km average pa, one car 35,000km pa
Public transport non existent.
Max Spaghetti
Member
Of course.
I might have clouded my point by adding my personal situation which is only one data point.
My main point was that average km driven by State is not a measure of km driven by rural vs metropolitan drivers.
Melbourne population 5.3M, VIC population 6.7M
Adelaide population 1.3M, SA population 1.7M.
Not a big difference in the proportion of people living in the city vs rural. Therefore the data of km driven by state is not a measure of km driven by city drivers vs rural. I hope that clears it up.
So getting back to the point of “who should pay for roads”, if we went full “user pays” then we could just fund by km driven. But the rural roads less driven are crap and long, so those rural drivers are paying more for crap roads and are effectively subsidising the nice metropolitan roads. Just another way of looking at it. Or we could just say that roads are a public service and fund through consolidated revenue. Which we pretty much do already.
Max Spaghetti
Member
As an anecdote, when it comes to right-wing politics, I often find it amusing to compare Australia to the USA.
We generally regard USA to be far more right-wing than Australia. The free market, each to their own, and user-pays.
But as I pointed out, the USA does not fund roads through a user-pays system of fuel excise. So why do we, the supposedly “socialist” county insist on it?
The USA considers roads to be a public service funded from consolidated revenue. It’s not a stretch for us to do the same.
We generally regard USA to be far more right-wing than Australia. The free market, each to their own, and user-pays.
But as I pointed out, the USA does not fund roads through a user-pays system of fuel excise. So why do we, the supposedly “socialist” county insist on it?
The USA considers roads to be a public service funded from consolidated revenue. It’s not a stretch for us to do the same.
It is funded in similar ways here. However car users are disproportionate users compared to those who say catch the bus or ride a bike (yes yes bikes are not a realistic means of transportation in rural areas).
There are ways to adjust for equity.
We do do that same. It’s a furphy that fuel excise funds the roads. It goes straight into consolidated revenue and can be spent on anything.
My solution to that as previously posted is to have a tiered RUC tax scale. Up to 10,000 km/year (a bit below the national average) you have a rate of say 2c/km. Then for say 10,000 - 20,000 pay 1.5c/km on the excess, for 20,000-30,000km pay 1c/km etc. And then maybe have an annual cap on the RUC charge. With access to the actual data on distance/year as a statistical density curve, the tiers could be intelligently derived to balance percentage of motorists hit with revenue raised.
It can also be adjustable by LGA.
For example an LGA which has poor public transportation options, large distances to large population centres, and low population /LGA total road length km ratio might get a different RUC charge weighting.
Medicare for example pays a higher rebate for Drs based on LGA/town. The more rural and the more remote the higher the rebate. In some areas a standard consult attracts triple rebate what the city Drs get.
Cities should preference public transportation IMO. EV or no EV, mass public transportation is better.
In the age ubiquitously available handheld computing devices, one might even go so far as to use a smooth algebraically derived curve for the kilometre cost rather than a primitive step function which inherently disadvantages those just over the steps. Like tax brackets... Something like kilometre cost = -0.000000001*km^2 + 0.000003*km + 2.025...
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