Victorian plan to abolish car registration fees

Car registration fees would be scrapped in Victoria in favour of a pay-per-kilometre road user tax under radical new proposals aimed at reducing the state’s emissions.

Sales of all new combustion-engined vehicles would also be banned by 2035 “at the latest” under a new 30-year strategy tabled in the Victorian parliament this week by Infrastructure Victoria.

With 94 recommendations in total, the independent advisory body’s report aims to tackle long-term challenges including “a warming climate and worsening congestion on our transport network”.

It also includes $100 billion worth of road and rail infrastructure projects between now and 2051.

For motorists, a key recommendation is scrapping Victoria’s annual registration fees and replacing them with a road user tax – similar to that already applied to electric vehicle users.

The new measure would charge motorists based on how many kilometres of travel and at what time of day.

Other proposals include a congestion charge for vehicles travelling into the Melbourne CBD – similar to measures introduced in London in 2003 – and peak and off-peak tolling to spread traffic throughout the day.

“Road user charges should ultimately combine a distance charge and a congestion charge at the times and locations of road congestion,” the report said.

The 30-year report recommended wholesale changes to Victoria’s new car fleet, including the accelerated uptake of zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs). It says Victoria risks being “left behind the rest of the world” without intervention.

Within five years, Infrastructure Victoria recommends “all new government fleet vehicles to be ZEVs where available”, and wants to commit to “no longer registering new petrol and diesel vehicles in Victoria by 2035 at the latest”.

The report found that current lifecycle emissions of a typical battery-electric vehicle – taking into account manufacture, operation (under the existing electricity generation mix) and disposal – are around 20 per cent lower than a typical petrol vehicle – a differential that will continue to change as the grid decarbonises.

There is a heavy focus on motor vehicle transport because although Victoria’s overall emissions have fallen 25 per cent over the past 15 years, vehicle emissions have increased 25 per cent since 1990.

“The transport sector (23 per cent) is the second-largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in Victoria behind electricity generation (45 per cent). Vehicle emissions have increased in Victoria in recent years, even as Victoria’s overall emissions levels have declined,” the report said.

“Our research has shown that if all vehicles on Victorian roads were ZEVs, around 27 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions would be eliminated in Victoria in the year 2046, equivalent to around 25 per cent of today’s total emissions.

“The transition to ZEVs could also deliver significant health benefits to Victorians through improved air quality. Victoria has previously estimated that the transition to ZEVs could create health benefits … of over $700 million annually by 2046.”

The Infrastructure Victoria report puts forward a host of recommendations for new train routes in Melbourne and its outer-ring suburbs. However, it concedes the dominant mode of transport in Victoria in years to come will be cars.

“Our transport modelling for Victoria’s infrastructure strategy found that by 2036 over 20 million car trips are expected each day in Victoria. This accounts for approximately 90 per cent of all motorised trips, with public transport making up the remainder,” the report said.