Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Terry Collins: AA Fuel Spokesperson on the Government pushing back and reducing the fuel tax hike

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Terry Collins: AA Fuel Spokesperson on the Government pushing back and reducing the fuel tax hike · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Now, no fuel tax increase next year. There's your headline.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: It was supposed to go up 12 cents in January,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: then 6 cents a year thereafter. Instead, it's going to
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: go up 10 cents a year from 2028. Six monthly installments.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Labour would, of course, freeze it.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: The opposition's promise to freeze fuel excise and road user
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: charges for an entire three-year term would leave a hole
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: of around $ 4. 675 billion in the transport system budget. The
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: government's view is that that is irresponsible.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Terry Collins, AA Fuel spokesperson. Morning, Terry.
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: Good morning, Warren.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Is that number right, first of all, the $ 4. 6 billion
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: they're claiming that freezing it for three years would leave
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: in the Land Transport Fund? Is it accurate?
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: Look, I'm relying upon that number. I haven't done the
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: actual analysis right yet around it. What we do know
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: is that the Land Transport Fund, which funds the building
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: of our roads and the maintenance of it, has been
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: under stress from not being able to get enough money
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: to do the work that we need to do. So
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: any time that we remove money from it or we
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: make some uncertainty around the funding, it just adds to
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: the problem, kicks it down the road and makes the
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: problem bigger in the future.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: It's a problem with democracy, isn't it? You have elections,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: governments get trigger happy on the promises.
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: They do. And what's really disappointing was early in the year,
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: the Infrastructure Commission put out a lot of plans and
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: all the governments were bipartisan, cheerleaders for it saying, yes,
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: we need this constant support so we don't go stop
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: and go on our projects. We need secure funding. We
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: need everything. And of course, an election comes along and
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: those noble thoughts go out the door.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: We blow it all up. So what is the shortfall here?
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Based on the announcement yesterday, how much short is the
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: fund going to be And what sort of project would
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: get delayed because of that? Would it mean we don't
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: fix the potholes, or would it mean that there's just
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: a road that doesn't get built, or gets built later?
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, when you look at the funding and all the
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: work that needs to be done, many of those announced
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: large roading projects will not get built unless we find
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: funding for them, and we haven't got the funding. What
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: the government announced was there would be about a $ 1. 4
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: billion project top-up required, $ 400 million, $ 450 million would come
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: from the fuel response allocation that they did earlier this
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: year in the budget, which would leave about $ 1 billion
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: to find. That's coming out of dual taxation. So that's
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: $ 1 billion not going to health or $ 1 billion not
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: going to education or wherever else it could have been
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: allocated because we're not putting that fuel tax back on
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: that we traditionally done under a user-paced system. I mean,
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: what they could have done was just put $ 0. 05 on
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: in January and at least made the hole smaller. No,
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: the top up less, but they just seem to have
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: made a very binary decision, put it off for a
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: year and started again, leaving a hole.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Terry Collins, AO Fuel spokesperson.