Registration fees will fund national regulator, but there is uncertainty over whether charges will need to increase to do so
By Brad Gardner | August 8, 2012
Trucking operators face an uncertain wait to see if registration fees will need to increase to bankroll the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR).
During his appearance at a public hearing on the Heavy Vehicle National Law Bill in Queensland last Friday, NHVR Project Director Richard Hancock told a committee of MPs the regulator would rely on truck registration fees to run.
While he says the project office is trying to create the regulator with the existing pool of funding, Hancock adds that states and territories will incur additional costs to change their IT systems and align them with the one the regulator will use.
“The industry frequently asks me whether heavy vehicle charges will increase as a result of the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator coming into operation,” Hancock told the Transport, Housing and Local Government Committee.
“It is the National Transport Commission whose responsibility it is to do the annual determinations and the new determinations around the heavy vehicle charges themselves. So I do not have any direct control in that particular process and ultimately those decisions are made by ministers.”
Hancock says the project office has spent “considerable time” looking at the sorts of costs facing the states and territories in the move to a national set of regulations, which are due to partly begin on January 1.
“What I would add into that process is that the productivity and economic benefit from the reform for individual states and territories is a multiple of those initial IT and system adjustment costs, and that I am confident of,” he says.
Introduced into Queensland Parliament earlier this month, the Heavy Vehicle National Law Bill will create the regulator, which will be based in Brisbane. Other jurisdictions, except Western Australia, are due to pass similar legislation to ensure cross-border consistency.
Key states like New South Wales and Victoria do not expect to enact the regulations until July next year, meaning some of the NHVR’s core functions will not begin on January 1. This includes acting as a one-stop-shop for permit applications and registration.
The most recent changes to registration fees led to significant increases to the cost of rigid trucks and road trains, prompting some jurisdictions to introduce rebates to offset the impact on small operators.
The increases also coincided with a drop in A-trailer fees to assist B-double and B-triple operators, but the fuel excise increased by 2.4 cents per litre.
