MEDIA RELEASE
30 June 2023
LABOR’S TRUCKIE TAX TO DRIVE UP LIVING COSTS ON 1 JULY
The Albanese Government’s $2.6 billion inflation-worsening truckie tax will hit the nation’s freight and transport sector this weekend, from 1 July.
Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development, Senator Bridget McKenzie said increased fuel taxes for truckies and bus operators will hit from midnight 1 July, meaning increases in the cost of delivering everything families buy.
“The first tranche of Labor’s $2.6 billion truckie tax will hit this weekend with fuel taxes for transport operators increasing by six per cent,” Senator McKenzie said.
“This is a tax that will hurt truckies first, but will quickly flow onto increased costs to family budgets as well as making it more expensive to transport premium fresh quality food from our farms to market and more costly for small business to get their goods to customers.
“Everything we make in this country and every product we buy gets to a ship by travelling on a truck, whether it is grown on a farm, manufactured in a factory or enters the country via a port.
“The tax on fuel truckies pay will climb from 27.2 cents per litre up to 28.8 cents per litre from midnight 1 July 2023, before eventually rising to 32.4 cents per litre on 1 July 2024.”
Senator McKenzie said the truckie tax is a further sign Labor has its budget strategy all wrong at a time of high inflation and rising interest rates.
“Instead of putting downward pressure on inflation, Labor is making the Reserve Bank’s job even harder by imposing inflationary tax increases on transport to pay for Prime Minister Albanese’s increased spending.
“The Government is failing to address the cost of living pressures facing Australian families, farmers and small businesses and the increase to the truckie tax is going to negatively impact the economy,” Senator McKenzie said.
ENDS