President of the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) Councillor Geoff Lake has signalled that Local Government wants to be closely involved in any future move to introduce user charges for travel on Australian roads.
His comments follow the release of a report by Professor Clarke and David Prentice – ‘A Conceptual Framework for the Reform of Taxes Related to Roads and Transport’ – which was commissioned by the Henry Tax Review.
“Local Government is responsible for more than 80 per cent of the total Australian road system and road maintenance costs are the single biggest expenditure item for most councils,” Councillor Lake said. “Any move to begin charging for the use of the road network and linking future funding to road use is critically important to Local Government.
“Local Government generally supports the principle recommended in the Clarke/Prentice report that there should be a direct linkage between the use of road infrastructure, charging and funding.
“Future reform that more directly links funding of local roads to their usage would be welcomed by Local Government.”
There is currently no linkage between the use of local roads and road funding.
Local roads are funded from rates levied on landholders and from ad hoc additional government grants, which are mainly provided by the Federal Government.
“The current arrangements for funding the vast bulk of Australia’s road system have not changed from the nineteenth century when Local Government grew out of local roads boards,” Councillor Lake said.
“Times have now moved on and so must outdated road funding and taxation arrangements.
“Councils are required to maintain more than 80 per cent of Australia’s roads without being able to access a more equitable way of meeting these immense costs.
“Local Government urges the Federal, State and Territory Governments to give careful consideration to the feasibility of user charging for our roads, including local roads, to ease the burden on Australian ratepayers.”
The Council of Australian Governments (COAG), of which the Australian Local Government Association is a member, has already agreed for work to proceed on developing a pricing system based on user charges for heavy vehicles.
Local Government believes that any future system of road user charging must apply equally to local roads so as not to create a two tier
road system.
