Tom Minear: Grasping VicRoads needs a kick up its bottom line
REGISTERING a car is expensive and time-consuming enough without having to pay to make an appointment at VicRoads, but this was my bureaucratic nightmare, writes Tom Minear.
Opinion
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REGISTERING a car should be a trouble-free process. VicRoads deals with 5.2 million registrations every year and racks up more than $4.4 billion in fees, so they should have the experience and the resources to make it easy.
But then I walked into their “digital service centre” in the CBD a few weeks ago.
I’d just moved back to Melbourne from Canberra and sorting out a Victorian licence and numberplates was midway through the long to-do list that comes with an interstate move.
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I read the instructions on the VicRoads website, signed the forms, unscrewed my ACT plates, gathered up my ID and made sure I had enough cash to cover the $816.50 rego fee, not to mention another $276.70 for a 10-year licence.
A VicRoads worker met me at the front door, handed me a ticket and sat me down in a waiting room. It took nearly an hour to make it to the front of the queue, which I thought was frustrating but probably usual.
That’s when the woman at the desk told me I’d come to the right place — and she could make me an appointment for a week later to get my plates and licence.
Sensing my confusion, she plugged my details in the system and realised I’d lived in Victoria almost all my life and my car had been registered here before.
“This will be easy. You won’t even need all those documents,” she said. “Come in next Friday and we’ll sort it out then.”
Then she pulled out an EFTPOS machine and said: “That’ll be $37.”
It turns out the taxpayer-funded roads agency charges fees to make appointments and because I needed to sort out my licence and rego, I had to pay $18.50 twice.
I couldn’t believe it so I went online and found the story of Trevor who complained to VicRoads about appointment fees.
He got a letter back: “VicRoads has introduced fees to previously uncharged services as part of its measure to strengthen its financial position through reducing debt and restraining government spending.”
A week later, I walked to Carlton VicRoads office still staggered that an agency swimming in cash from the fees we pay would charge us for the privilege of paying those fees.
I was ready for this bureaucratic nightmare to be over but the VicRoads official insisted she couldn’t register my car without inspecting it.
I showed her the VicRoads website, which explicitly said no inspection would be required, but she wouldn’t budge.
I drove back that afternoon, my VicRoads rage about to boil over.
A worker spent 15 minutes pulling apart my service manual and trying to find an engine number under the bonnet with a torch. Then she said she couldn’t register my car unless she photocopied its contract of sale.
I showed her the old VicRoads registration label that was still stuck on my windscreen, but apparently the evidence threshold is higher at VicRoads than the Supreme Court.
Finally I was handed new numberplates and a four-figure bill, after three trips and at least two hours of my life I’ll never get back.
While I was fighting VicRoads, Daniel Andrews was on the attack about privatisation, particularly how it had failed to reduce the cost of electricity for families and households.
The government is now making noises about intervening in the market and is considering a plan to create a state-owned electricity retailer.
Some Labor types like to believe this would bring down prices and make life easier for low-income households.
But good luck getting voters on board with that when the already-bloated bureaucracy is causing people so many headaches.
And it’s a bit rich to say you’re on the side of battling families when you’re slugging people the price of a six-pack just to get an appointment at VicRoads.
And if the government really wanted to tackle the rising cost of living, maybe it should do something about the fact that rego has skyrocketed more than $200 since 2010.
TOM MINEAR IS STATE POLITICS REPORTER
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