National transport plan
In a welcome recognition of a huge problem, the July 30 special premiers' conference in Sydney is to discuss a national approach to long-distance freight haulage. Unfortunately, the main proposals likely to come out of this discussion will do little to solve the problem.
Part of the plan is to encourage a shift from road to rail by making road transport more expensive. But the proposal for a user-pays approach to road use is fraught with difficulties and injustices, as has been demonstrated in clashes between truck owners and governments in several spectacular truck blockades. The plan is to tax heavy vehicles according to weight and distance travelled. Aside from any other issue, this will hit owner-operators much harder than the two or three huge companies that now dominate the industry.
A user-pays approach to road use cannot alone solve the enormous problems created by decades of complacent reliance on road transport while the rail system was allowed to fall into neglect. One result of government policy over this period is that thousands of ordinary Australians now depend on the road transport industry for their livelihoods.
The fact that their industry is environmentally as well as economically unviable will not reduce the difficulties and the anger of people who find their livelihoods threatened through no fault of their own. Short of a comprehensive plan to assist those whose jobs are threatened, including through government-financed retraining and relocation, the premiers' proposal could simply make the overall situation worse.
Some issues that are unavoidable in the discussion of a national transport plan include:
- Controlling or preferably breaking up the huge road transport companies, whose power has also penetrated into state rail systems in recent years.
- Directing adequate funds into the rail system to ensure that it can provide efficient service and expand to meet new demands.
- Providing alternative employment and compensation for owner-drivers and small businesses disadvantaged by the necessary move from road to rail.
Short of these and other measures, a plan based on higher road taxes will simply result in clashes which governments will probably, and deservedly, lose, postponing solutions to a problem that is no longer postponable.
