Is a road user charge for EVs really the best the Productivity Summit can do?

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• Just take step back.
  The fuel excise is general tax revenue.
  We want to protect the general revenue that the government collects.
  Just increase income tax by 1%.
  Remove the fuel subsidy.
  No one is disadvantaged; the government keep getting their general revenue (tax) stream.
  We should remove legislation and simplify tax, not add more and increase complexity.

  • This will slow the transition to BEVs

  • So those people that don't own cars, the most green option, get hit. Great plan, not.

    • Those people still benefit from roads, assuming they eat and buy stuff, and catch busses occasionally. Some things have to be publicly funded, and critical infrastructure like roads is one of them.

    • You raise a good point!
      I want my rates dropped because I don't use public parks!
      I want my tax dropped because I don't use hospitals or schools.
      Police fire and ambos can get out of my pocket too!
      I think your point of view is the right way for both society and my hip pocket!

• Smacks of grubby cash grab.

  Begs the question why don’t they have a road user charge in Europe? Instead they have the opposite implementing low emission zones in city centres. Bigger polluting vehicles pay more through yearly road registration tax.

  Why don’t the Australian government ween taxpayers money off the $14++ billion a year in fossil fuel subsides? Coupled with savings from less reliance on health system, improved loss of work time stats would super charge productivity outcomes.

• It would be good if taxation would put a price on the cost of negative externalities.

  Take the current taxation of EVs as a baseline.

  Calculate the difference in lifetime negative externalities between ICE and EV.

  Put extra tax on ICE vehicles to the extent of this difference. 

  Once EVs form a significant share of registered cars, repeat the exercise but take EVs with the lowest negative externalities as a baseline. Other EVs will then be taxed proportionally.

• Seriously? Click bait headline & there were in fact many other facts, proposals & plans. Learn to read & actually do some journalism. Dreadful, this seems to have become a feature of this mag: either lift it or sensationalise it.

  • Yes, they also want to attack the NDIS by removing Autism. So two highly productive steps.

    • ”Autism” has to be one of the most over-diagnosed conditions in the country now. Every second kid now is apparently “autistic” or “on the spectrum”.

      True autism is a serious condition and requires a lot of intervention and management. But now every slight developmental delay or challenging behaviour has parents shopping for an autism diagnosis 🤦‍♂️

• Remove or reduce the 50% capital gains tax discount. Not only will it raise more money but it will help return housing to somewhere to live rather than somewhere to invest. A big reason this isn't being put forward by any political party is that politicians are major beneficiaries, with many owning >3 properties. Just bear that in mind when you see all the hand-wringing about the housing crisis.

  • Bring in an inheritance tax.
    We're not taxing you or your money; we're taxing your dead parent's money.
    Easy peasy.

    • How many young people today are relying on an inheritance to ever have a hope of owning their own home.

  • >>....help return housing to somewhere to live rather than somewhere to invest<<

    YES!
    I came to Australia twenty years ago and just cannot get over how SICK the house market is. I've never known a country where property is treated this way and is so talked about. All the time.

• An easy way to change the current State based car registration (taxation) regime would be to federalise the whole mess. That is, modernise the bloated and inefficient State bureaucracies that blight the motor vehicle system, and introduce a federal car tax that would in part continue to fund such activities such as roadworthy testing, cover the inevitable growth in EV tax and the inevitable decline in fossil fuel use, at the same time, provide funds for much needed road works.

  • Difficult to do. You are threatening profits in Victoria's privatised registration system.

• Agreed. Depressing. Surprised they didn't suggest a GST increase.

  Progressive my RS

  • Increasing the GST would be a very regressive taxation step.

    • Indeed it would be.

  • There are suggestions in the mix of raising it to 15% and paying it on fresh food at the same time.

  • Kate Chaney (Teal) is a big fan of a regressive GST increase to 15%. So much for the Teals being progressive - she might as well just join the Liberal Party.

    • Yes, several of the Teals are self professed Environmentally aware Neoliberals.

      If you want Climate Change action and Progressive policies the Greens should be above the Teals and LibLab.

• So the motorists who use virtually no imported fossil fuel, thus an economic benefit for the balance of payments admittedly small now, but growing, pay.
  The fossil fuel foreign gas/coal exporters pay zero tax (Adani, Chevron, Santos, Shell and others). The government handed out $14.9bn in subsidies to the fossil fuelers in 2024-25.
  So, the EV's owners should pay a road user charge. I have a suggestion for Albo, Chalmers and his minions in the LibLabNat COALition...slug those causing the most damage to the environment, health and the future of mankind.

• If they want to increase revenue they simply need to:

  • Eliminate fossil fuel subsidies
  • Make fossil fuel companies pay their fair share of tax
  • Add an ICE tax to fuel to cover the damage done by ICE vehicles to the health of the population, which costs billions of $ a year
  • Eliminate any incentives to buy ICE vehicles, such as tax write-offs etc

  Start with those four things and the revenue problem is solved, and will improve as the number of ICE vehicles drops, air quality improves, and there is less sickness in the general population.

  It's not rocket science, unless you are a federal politician, it seems.

  • But the Lib/Lab cartel on this issue couldn't possibly do that - where are they going to get all those donations at election time to replace the FF lobby's lovely moolah?

• >>So if this is really about how we intelligently raise taxation revenue rather than complete BS about how we fund roads – then let’s think a lot more broadly.<<

  Couldn't put it better myself except I would use stronger language,