Hey r/AusFinance, what are your thoughts of the government extending road tolls to all highways in Australia? E.g. Parramatta Rd, Hume Highway etc

[oliviagold]

This would provide the government a substantial increase to the federal budget, allowing more expenditure to the public service sector.

This would also be a stable source of income to the government as well, as suburbs with limited to no public transport have no choice but to use toll roads to get to work.

This is also a bandage solution to the inflation/cost of living crises, with food and energy prices through the roof. Whilst all central banks around the world grapple with the issue of inflation, governments can assist central banks by introducing austerity measures, e.g. indirect taxation through toll roads.

What are your thoughts? Lets discuss!

 

[antiquarian]

@oliviagold Why not just charge some kind of annual fee? Maybe they could do it per vehicle. Then that money could be spent building roads. They could call it “vehicle registration”.

 

[judd04]

@antiquarian It's almost like all taxation goes into one big pot (well, a handful of them, one for Feds, one for each state and one for local governments) then gets pulled out at the end to pay for things, so vehicle registration doesn't really go to the roads anyways.

 

[freeforthetaking]

@oliviagold Big fat no. Tolls can get their grubby private company hands off my tax funded roads

 

[dpardue]

@oliviagold You are the master of these posts. Amazing how many people take you 100% seriously.

 

[nailz]

@dpardue The sub has become such a caricature that joke posts are indistinguishable from the actual dumb shit people here believe.

No idea is too stupid for r/AusFinance now.

 

[lost55]

@oliviagold I can see the point you are trying to make but that would add an additional cost on to people that are already dealing with an increased cost of living. Also the toll roads currently in place are through the freaking roof. If they going to do that they would have to seriously drop the cost of the toll roads. The roads are also gridlocked most of the damn time and you are going to charge for the roads they should at least move smoothly. The toll roads in Melbourne sit at 80km most of the time and it’s freaking annoying, so lots of people would be pissed if the Hume went from 110/100 to 80 and people would just end up getting more fines.
Also we pay a pretty penny in rego and that goes towards road maintenance, I would want my rego to drop.

 

[sabby54]

@oliviagold We already have a tax on the use of these roads. It’s called fuel excise.

 

[hjb]

@sabby54 You use less fuel on these roads per km, so a toll could make up shortfall

 

[beatye]

@hjb There’s no shortfall, fuel excise doesn’t go exclusively to roads. That’s why we have tolls.

 

[hjb]

@beatye There is a shortfall. Roads with slower speed limits use more fuel, therefore the highways use less fuel so less tax is generated. That's a shortfall compared to other roads. How is it fair if I drive 5 km on non highway I pay more tax than you who drive the highway

We have tolls to build roads not included in the normal network

 

[javier_is_life]

@hjb There is no shortfall. The tax is calculated based on median or average use overall.

 

[hjb]

@javier_is_life Why should I pay more because I don't have a highway to use

 

[javier_is_life]

@hjb You do know people have different costs for the same things depending on where they live, right? And regional folk tend to pay more for petrol at the pump so they're paying more tax on it anyway. We don't all have exactly the same cost of living in every corner of the country. For something you are pay less than other people.

 

[hjb]

@javier_is_life Because it's not fair a toll on the highway can make things fairer

It used to be that Australia was about fair go

 

[javier_is_life]

@hjb Not fair? What are you? Twelve? Why should regional folk pay more for less road options? They only have a freeway to travel when you have main roads, back streets and public transport. Paying per routes available can make things fairer.

 

[hjb]

@javier_is_life No regional people don't.have highways often they only have back roads . These people are the ones I was talking about.

The ones that do have highways get subsidised

 

[jane99]

@oliviagold Toll roads are a symbol of government failure. For a start, trucks do 10-50,000x more damage to roads than cars (Google it). Will they pay that much more in tolls? No? Then you're just subsidizing Amazon, Coles, Linfox, etc. Same applies to normal roads too but much of that cost is defrayed by other taxes on industry.

 

[mathwiz03]

@oliviagold How good would it be for the regional population to have the choice of paying a toll or driving an extra 4 hours to get to their destination avoiding a toll. /s

 

[billvelek]

@oliviagold Sweet lets get some defined inputs and outputs in that social contract and then we shall talk. Not only is Taxation theft you are actually being robbed here twice.