Fuel tax credits (FTCs) for the trucking industry could be gone by 2031 if the federal government combines the Productivity Commission’s recommendation to phase them out with its current approach to road user charging, said the Australian Trucking Industry (ATA) CEO Mathew Munro.
Munro was speaking at the end of two weeks of intensive lobbying to keep FTCs in place.
The ATA has met with senior government ministers, ministerial staff and departmental officials, with ATA Chair Mark Parry travelling to Canberra twice and now Melbourne to press the industry’s concerns.
Munro said the ATA had shared forecasts of the fuel excise, road user charge and FTC rates with ministers.
“In our meetings, we emphasised that the commission’s plan assumes that the government will scrap its existing approach to road pricing,” Munro said.
“We pointed out that it is not possible to increase the road user charge in line with a road pricing model and implement the commission’s phase out as well.
“This approach would increase effective fuel tax by more than 10 per cent per year and would mean the industry’s fuel tax credits would be gone by 2031.
“Freight costs would skyrocket; thousands of trucking businesses would fail as this rapid transition occurred.”
Munro said ATA members have raised the possible removal of FTCs as their number one issue.
“We have responded by giving it our highest priority. We must deal with the issue right now because the government is preparing its budget,” he said.
The Productivity Commission argues that by scrapping FTCs for the trucking industry it incentivises uptake of trucks powered by alternative fuels.
The ATA’s on-going fight to counter that claim comes as a new University of Melbourne study claims the health impacts from heavy vehicle emissions are costing the community more than $6.2 billion per year.
The discussion paper, titled The Unpriced Burden: Heavy vehicle emissions and the $6.2 billion health cost assesses the annual taxpayer cost of premature deaths, cardio-respiratory hospital admissions and lung cancer treatment resulting from inhalation of nitrogen oxide emissions produced by trucks on our roads.
The paper has been released in anticipation of the Federal Government’s Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL) reform later this year.
Extracted in full from: https://bigrigs.com.au/2026/02/23/trucking-industry-ramps-up-fight-to-keep-fuel-tax-credits/
