This morning on ABC’s Insider’s program, Shadow Infrastructure minister Bridget McKenzie said that Electric Vehicle drivers should pay a road usage charge and that this will be considered should they win Government at the upcoming Federal Election.
The announcement comes during an interview with host David Speers.
Those who’ve followed techAU for some time will be familiar with our coverage of the EV Tax as a Victorian-only policy, which was ultimate overturned by the high court.
It seems the same argument is being made that EV owners don’t contribute to the maintenance of roads.
The truth is, revenue earned from the fuel excise charged on every litre of petrol and diesel, goes back to the Commonwealth Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) and there is no legal obligation for the Government to spend this on road maintenance.
Those paying attention will also know the Australian Coalition, led by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, has proposed a policy to halve the fuel excise for 12 months if elected.
This would reduce the excise from approximately 50.8 cents per litre to 25.4 cents per litre, saving motorists around 25 cents per litre on petrol and diesel.
The Coalition estimates this would cost the federal budget $6 billion in forgone revenue over the year.
Given this it seems incredibly strange to then claim the road maintenance needs funding, when you’ve just cut $6 Billion that could be spent on it.
EV uptake is growing, but has slowed in the rate of adoption, as such, it’s not clear that a Road User Charge for EVs aka an EV tax, would go anywhere close to making up this $6 billion deficit.
For the time Victoria’s EV tax was in place (July 1st, 2021 to October 2023), it raised just $ 7 million dollars.
A number of times during the interview, McKenzie also makes reference to lower-middle class people effectively subsidising EV owners.
It seems McKenzie is out of date here, in the last few years since we last seen the EV tax, the Electric Vehicle landscape in Australia has shifted considerably.
A branch new Electric Vehicle, the BYD Dolphin is available for just $29,990 plus on-road costs (approximately $31,000–$33,000 drive-away). This is a significant change from a few years ago when the entry point started with a 5.
The average cost of a new vehicle in Australia, is around A$61,000.
This year, there will be 29 EV models/variants that have an Manufacturer Price under that amount, so it’s time to put this one to bed, EVs are not just for the rich, so please stop saying that, it just makes you look uninformed.
You can watch the interview here – https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-27/interview-with-bridget-mckenzie/105221054
Read more on ABC’s site – https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-27/coalition-puts-ev-drivers-on-notice-over-road-use-tax/105221034
