7/1/2020 Road users must pay, sooner rather than later https://theconversation.com/road-users-must-pay-sooner-rather-than-later-43259 1/3 Author Michael de Percy Senior Lecturer in Political Science, University of Canberra Academic rigour, journalistic flair Road users must pay, sooner rather than later June 16, 2015 12.05pm AEST The idea of motorists paying for the roads they use beyond tolls, fuel excise or registration fees has taken hold in Australia. A user-pays system might replace existing fees with charges based on motorists’ actual use of roads. New technologies would allow charges to be applied at different rates during peak periods in the same way we pay for the use of telecommunications or electricity networks. The Henry Tax Review, the Harper Competition Review, the Productivity Commission’s Public Infrastructure Inquiry, last week’s AFR National Infrastructure Summit, and now the Australian Automobile Association, agree it’s time. But politicians aren’t sure it will pass the “pub test” with voters. A user-pays system is necessary to reduce congestion on our roads and improve productivity into the future. We must have a debate over how, not if, we should implement a road user-pays system. But chances are political debates will send the user-pays idea down a rabbit hole before it even begins. Can it pass the “pub test”? No politician wants to be the one who implements a user-pays system for roads. But while the jury is still out on whether motorists support the idea of user-pays, the current fuel excise hits those who can A well designed user pays system for Australian roads would help boost productivity. Image sourced from shutterstock.com brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by University of Canberra Research Repository