Push to make trucks pay  ( From the Stock and Land )
ANDREW WEST AND LOUISE HALL
07 Jan, 2010 09:11 AM
THE long-haul trucking industry is facing renewed calls to pay its way, as pressure mounts to get heavy vehicles carrying dangerous goods off the roads after a spate of fatal accidents.

The Australasian Railway Association is increasingly confident that the review of the tax system by the Treasury Secretary, Ken Henry, will recommend road-user charges that will recover from the trucking industry more of the money spent building and maintaining main roads.


The New Zealand Government imposes road-user charges on ''diesel-powered heavy vehicles like trucks'', according to its Transport Agency website, while the Dutch Government announced last November that it would impose kilometre-based charges for all cars and heavy goods vehicles from 2012.


The rail association's chief executive, Brian Nye, said smaller trucks - such as those used by couriers and for deliveries to households and small businesses - were subsidising the massive B-double trucks and road trains that travel the highways.


''The current way we price road use is no longer sustainable,'' Mr Nye said. ''For example, I also own a farm, and to register a nine-tonne truck cost me less than to register my ute.''


Mr Nye was commenting after the Rail, Tram and Bus Union - with the support of the rail association and the motoring body NRMA - announced it would begin a campaign to change the law to require the transport of dangerous goods, such as fuel and chemicals, to and from the nearest available rail hub.


The NSW Opposition Leader, Barry O'Farrell, has called on the State Government to restore the subsidy it once provided for companies transporting fuel by rail, rather than road.


''Labor should acknowledge their mini-budget mistake [in November 2008], reinstate the subsidy and start promoting greater use of rail to transport freight, especially hazardous goods, across NSW," he said.


The Premier, Kristina Keneally, said using rail to move dangerous goods was ''an attractive proposition'' but would ''require a very different rail network from the one we currently have''.