The Australian’s David Uren is today pushing the case to charge motorists directly for road usage, after the issue was once again brought to the fore in the Harper review draft report into competition policy:
The arguments on road pricing are fairly straightforward. At present, motorists are taxed with fuel excise when they fill their tanks, annual motor registration fees, stamp duties when they sell their cars and, for those with expensive tastes, a luxury-car tax. Apart from the occasional road toll, none of these levies, which raise around $25 billion a year, bears any relation to the use motorists make of roads, their construction and maintenance, or other costs of usage, such as pollution and public safety. The only price motorists pay is waiting in queues of traffic.
