Canberra says it will not extend the fuel tax and road user charge relief despite trucking operators calling for an extra month.
Heavy vehicle fuel tax and road user charge relief will end on Monday (August 3) but the Australian Trucking Association (ATA) is pushing for it to run all month.
They had sought a meeting with Federal Transport Minister Catherine King to press their case.
But Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese say that there will be no further extension.
“As the Prime Minister said, it’s not in our current plans to continue the excise,” Wong told ABC News today (July 28).
“We said it would step down. What we are focused on is assuring continued fuel and fertiliser coming into Australia.”
On Sunday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese pointed to tax cuts, minimum wage increases, lower fuel consumption and continual supply as easing cost of living pressures on drivers.
“That’s not in our planning at this point in time,” he said of an extension in a TV interview on Sunday.
“There is now more fuel in Australia today than there was on February 28.”
Click here for a fact sheet about the relief scheme
TRUCKING CONCERNS FOR CANBERRA
Trucking association chief executive officer Mathew Munro says the fuel tax relief brought in after the Iran-US war started (currently 14.4 cents a litre compared to the normal 32.4c/L) had saved many businesses.
“Trucking was already in a precarious position before the war, and it is clear that the crisis isn’t over,” he says.
“The ceasefire collapsed, the double blockade of the Strait of Hormuz resumed, Houthi rebels in Yemen are attempting to blockade oil shipments from the west coast of Saudi Arabia.
“Diesel prices are rising again. The average terminal gate price of diesel is now more than 200c/L in every capital city,” Munro says.
“It will be difficult for many trucking businesses to pay more for fuel and at the same time receive less in tax credits as the 16c/L increase in the road user charge begins to bite.”
RURAL OPERATORS BACK ATA
The Australian Livestock and Rural Transporters Association (ALRTA) echoed the ATA’s call to Canberra.
ALRTA says the end of the relief will add $64 to every 400-litre fill for members.
Its president, Gerard Johnson, says rural transport operators were already travelling long distances on extremely tight margins.
“Livestock and farm freight still have to move, whatever happens overseas,” he says.
“Rural transport operators buy fuel by the thousands of litres. A rise of this size can wipe the margin from a load and turn a paying job into a loss.”
Of ATA’s meeting with King, he says: “The industry is speaking with one voice.
“This increase should not proceed while international conflict is causing renewed volatility in fuel markets.”
In June, Canberra announced plans to restore the fuel excise and road user charge in stages after the US and Iran had agreed to a 60-day ceasefire; that relief was extended after the ceasefire collapsed.
Houthi rebels are recently begun to attack Saudi shipping in the Red Sea while Russia stopped diesel exports after Ukrainian attacks on its refineries.
“Rural transport operators should not be hit with a higher tax in the middle of another fuel price shock,” Johnson says of the decision made in Canberra.
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