All the way back on 29 March, I gave a commitment to our members that your National Council would do everything in its power to take the bite out of the recent national decision on charges, particularly the unfair impact on road trains.
So far, we’ve seen four mainland States publicly commit to making improvements that will benefit road train operators.
And now, the focus is on Canberra.
Last week, the Opposition wrote to the Federal Government proposing that the fuel tax should only go up by 5.7% this year. That’s around 1.3 cents per litre, rather than the 2.4 cpl that’s due to commence next week.
Since early this year, the ALRTA has consistently and publicly supported a 5.7% increase, even though we know that it would still be a pretty tough figure for many members.
Last night (Sunday), the Leader of the Nationals and the Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, the Hon Warren Truss, declared that the Opposition is willing to debate the matter in the Parliament and may …
have no choice but to move to disallow the increased charges to protect truck drivers from unfair, arbitrary increases
You can find Mr Truss’ statement here.
We’re pleased to see the Opposition adopt a position that matches the ALRTA’s views.
Parliament is sitting in Canberra this week, so a decision on this contentious issue won’t be far away.
Today we’ve made our own public statement on the diesel tax, and we’ve released the figures we’ve been presenting to key decision makers for several weeks now.
That material is shared with our member in the rest of today’s News.
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I want to take a moment to thank the members of our National Council, who have put in a tremendous effort to approach the key Federal Politicians who will determine the outcome on the diesel tax increase. Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve done little else but work on this issue.
Whatever happens in Federal Parliament this week, you can be sure that your voice has been heard.
John Beer