Bills Digest no. 157 2009–10
Interstate Road Transport Charge Amendment Bill
2010
WARNING:
This Digest was prepared for debate. It reflects the legislation as
introduced and does not canvass subsequent amendments. This Digest
does not have any official legal status. Other sources should be
consulted to determine the subsequent official status of the
Bill.
CONTENTS
Passage history
Purpose
Background
Financial implications
Main provisions
Contact officer & copyright details
Passage history
Interstate Road Transport Charge Amendment
Bill 2010
Date introduced: 12 May 2010
House: House
of Representatives
Portfolio: Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and
Local Government
Commencement: On Royal Assent.
Links: The
links to the Bill, its Explanatory Memorandum and second
reading speech can be found on the Bills page, which is at http://www.aph.gov.au/bills/.
When Bills have been passed they can be found at ComLaw, which is
at http://www.comlaw.gov.au/.
The Interstate Road Transport
Charge Amendment Bill 2010 (‘the Bill’) will amend the
Interstate Road Transport Charge Act 1985 to enable
partial implementation to a 30 April 2010 decision of the
Australian Transport Council (ATC)[1] regarding the heavy vehicle registration charge
under the Federal Interstate Registration Scheme (FIRS) [2].
The relevant decision by the ATC was to lower the prospective
increase in the registration charge from 9.7 per cent to 4.2 per
cent and have this lower figure come into effect on 1 July
2010.[3]
Under arrangements established for the FIRS, sections 4 and 5 of
the Interstate Road Transport Charge Act 1985 (the Act)
provide for an annual registration charge for heavy vehicles coming
within the scope of that scheme. The amount of the registration
charge (which will depend on the type of vehicle) is set by the
Interstate Road Transport Charge Regulations 2009 (the
Regulations). Importantly for the purposes of this Bill, the
Regulations also sets the ‘annual adjustment factor’
– which, as its names implies, adjusts the amount of the
registration charge every year according to a formula set out in
Schedule 1.
The origin of the Regulations was, as stated by the Minister in
his second reading speech on the Bill:[4]
In February 2008, the Australian Transport
Council adopted the 2007 Heavy Vehicle Charges Determination, which
ensures that the road user charge and heavy vehicle registration
charges achieve cost recovery from the heavy vehicle industry for
its fair share of road infrastructure and maintenance costs
incurred by governments in Australia.
......
Adjustments to the heavy vehicle registration
charge depend heavily on changes in the level of spending on roads
and bridges and on changes in road usage by heavy vehicles.
Roads expenditure across all levels of
government has increased significantly in recent years. At the same
time, there has been a substantial growth in the number of higher
productivity heavy vehicles using the road network.[5]
The effects of those factors in the current
automatic annual adjustment formula results in a registration
charge increase of 9.7 per cent and a potential national
over-recovery of $116 million from heavy vehicle owners and
operators in 2010-11.
Pursuant to the provisions of the
Fuel Tax Act 2008, the National Transport Commission
(NTC)[6] was
requested by Commonwealth Transport Minister asked to undertake a
consultation with industry on heavy vehicle user charges. The
recommendation of a 4.2 per cent increase, rather than 9.7 per cent
produced by the current formula in Schedule 1 of the Regulations,
was contained in the relevant consultation paper released in March
2010.[7] Note that
FIRS heavy vehicle charges are made up of two elements:
a road user charge (which is levied on diesel fuel, and is
currently 21.7c per litre, and is dealt with under separate
legislation) and a registration charge, but it appears that
they are annually adjusted according to the same formulae. Hence,
the NTC recommendation to reduce the increase in the road user
charge to 4.2 per cent also meant a comparable reduction in the
increase to the registration charge.[8]
The NTC recommendation was subsequently adopted by the ATC in
its meeting of 30 April:
From 2010, ATC has approved a technical
modification to the heavy vehicle charges annual adjustment formula
applied to registration charges and the road user charge to ensure
that it avoids over or under-recovery of road costs due to changes
in road use (including fleet mix). This will result in the 2010
adjustment being 4.2% from 1 July 2010, or as soon as possible
thereafter depending on the regulatory timetables in the separate
jurisdictions. The National Transport Commission will provide the
result of future annual adjustment calculations to ATC members no
later than 31 January each year. [9]
At its meeting of 13 May 2010, the Senate Selection of Bills
Committee resolved the Bill not be referred to
committee.
The submission of the Australian Trucking Association on the
NTC’s March 2010 consultation paper welcomed the NTC’s
view that the proposed 9.7 per cent increase of the registration
charge would result in ‘over-recovery’ of relevant road
costs. However, they stated that the‘...industry presently
does not accept the 4.2 per cent figure put forward by the NTC as
it includes expenditure that cannot be verified’.[10]
In the second reading debate in the House of Representatives,
Warren Truss MP, Leader of the National Party, stated that
‘the coalition does not oppose the legislation’,
although he was critical of matters relating to heavy vehicle
safety, and more particularly the issue of the lack of sufficient
road side rest stops.[11]
The Explanatory Memorandum states:
There is no net financial impact on the
Australian Government Budget flowing from this amendment. All
revenue from FIRS charges is returned to the state and territory
governments under an agreed distribution formula that accounts for
road usage by FIRS heavy vehicles. State and Territory governments
are required to use FIRS funds on road maintenance within their
jurisdictions. [12]
However, should the Bill be passed and subsequently the proposed
registration charge increase lowered from 9.7 per cent to 4.2 per
cent, FIRS revenue to the States and Territories will be lower than
what would have otherwise been the case.
Item 1 repeals
subsection 5(6) of the Act. Subsection 5(6) provides that
regulations made ‘for the purposes of this section must not
take effect earlier than the first day after the end of the period
in which the regulations may be disallowed under Part 5 of the
Legislative Instruments Act 2003’.[13]
The Interstate Road Transport
Charge Regulation 2009 discussed above falls within the scope of
subsection 5(6). The repeal of subsection 5(6) will
therefore allow the amendment to these regulations (to change to
the annual adjustment formula to the registration charge) to take
effect on July 1 2010, providing of course the amendment itself is
made by that date.
Members, Senators and Parliamentary staff can obtain further
information from the Parliamentary Library on (02) 6277 2764.
Angus Martyn
3 June 2010
Bills Digest Service
Parliamentary Library
Back to top