Paddock to plate fee hike announced

Heavy vehicle users will pay more to use the nation’s roads from July 1, with a road user charge hike predicted to also increase the squeeze on consumer wallets.

Australia’s transport ministers have announced a hike in the Heavy Vehicle Road User Charge, effectively increasing the cost of every paddock-to-plate journey across the nation.

A communique released on Monday revealed the commonwealth, states and territories have voted to increase the heavy vehicle charge by 6 per cent a year for the next three years.

“This level of increase is considered by ministers to strike the right balance between the need to move back towards cost-recovery of the heavy vehicle share of road expenditure and the need to minimise impacts on this vital industry,” the communique said.

The new settings will begin on July 1 with estimates that the RUC will rise from 27.2 cents a litre to about 32.4c/l in three years.

Truck at Thallon Grain Corp. Picture: Supplied/Matt Stevens

Australian Trucking Association chair David Smith said fuel was already the biggest cost for trucking companies and the increased fees must be passed on to consumers.

“This will hit some operators and consumers very hard. There is basically nothing manufactured or processed in this country that does not at some point go on a truck,” he said.

“So your cost of living will go up.”

He said the changes will increase the cost of running an average B-double, grain truck or dairy tanker doing 180,000km a year by about $285,000 across the three years, but that heavier livestock trucks will rise “substantially more” to about $320,000.

Mr Smith also called for increased transparency in how the money collected through the RUC is spent on road funding.