Labor has quietly walked back a key plank of its plans to decarbonise Australia’s road freight industry, emptying an $80 million fund it set up three years ago to turbocharge the take-up of hydrogen-powered trucks.

Tuesday’s budget revealed that the government had removed $75 million of uncommitted funding from the Hydrogen Highways program, which was meant to encourage the use of hydrogen-fuelled trucks and the construction of charging stations along major freight routes.