ATA to urge states under NHVR to remove registration label system
After having called for the abolition of heavy vehicle registration labels, the Australian Trucking Association (ATA) is now seeking industry feedback from operators to “effectively advocate” this move.
ATA’s new registration label cost survey aims to determine the cost of physical registration labels to the industry, which will help the industry body make a push for a monthly direct debit charging rule.
The trucking body had earlier expressed support for the National Transport Commission (NTC’s) proposal to improve the ‘pay as you go’ (PAYGO) methodology.
“With the hassle of having to track down a truck which could possibly be thousands of kilometres away to change the label, right through to incurring heavy penalties for displaying out of date or incorrect labels, they need to be abolished,” ATA CEO Ben Maguire says.
“In order to effectively advocate for the removal, we need more information from road transport operators to accurately calculate the savings to the industry, and present these savings to government.
“If we can present accurate figures of savings, along with the huge success of removing registration labels in Western Australia, we hope to encourage the state governments operating under the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) to follow in the footsteps of WA in removing labels.”
ATA says the monthly direct debit charging rule is only feasible once registration labels are removed.
“A monthly registration option would have a positive cash flow effect on road transport operators across Australia,” Maguire says.
“The cash flow risk associated with high registration charges would be drastically reduced if operators could pay registration charges monthly.”
Maguire says ATA is also working to stop governments overcharging the heavy vehicle industry, which is estimated to be “overcharged $515 million in 2016-17 and 2017-18” based on NTC and government statistics.
“We need an independent price regulator to take the politics out of registration and fuel charges and set them fairly.”
For more details, visit the ATA website.