COLD SPRING SHOPS GETS RESULTS.

I kid, but look at a post from last week.

It's probably too much to ask for carbon taxes on the motor fuel, or on the juice used at the charging station, to price the environmental effects, and to have congestion pricing on the expressways and arterial streets, but at least the road authorities are thinking about the right things.  "There's a lot more the highway departments could do to treat the roads they build as productive assets, rather than liabilities held forth as begging bowls for the next infrastructure boondoggle."

Who knew that even then the boondoggle camped by a billabong, under the shade of a coolibah tree.

Less than one-fifth of Australians believe the fuel excise should remain under an overhaul to road charges, and almost half want it replaced with new distance-based charges that include electric vehicles.

The federal government is set to lose billions of dollars over the coming years with the increasing take-up of electric cars and is looking at a new way of charging motorists to use the roads.

There's a form of federalism in Australia, and motorists see too many jumbucks stuffed into state tucker-bags.

States and territories have already begun moving to road-user charging for electric cars, but there is no nationally consistent model.

Moving to a road-user model for all vehicles would potentially see fuel excise, car registration, tolls and other charges scrapped and replaced with a single tax based on distances travelled.

The revenue the government collects every year in fuel excise – around $13 billion – will plummet as new electric and fuel-efficient cars come online.

Exclusive findings in the Resolve Political Monitor, conducted for this masthead by research company Resolve Strategic, show that 48 per cent of people want fuel excise replaced with a road-user charging system for all vehicles if there is an overhaul at the federal level.

Predictably, the special interests are engaging in the usual sort of special pleading, with a seasoning of virtue signals.

Michael Bradley, managing director of the Australian Automobile Association, said the federal government’s desire to accelerate the increased supply of electric cars into Australia was welcome, but it came with a responsibility to develop a new way to charge motorists.

“States are already taking different approaches to the implementation of road-user charges for electric vehicles, and a nationally led approach is needed to deliver the necessary transition away from our infrastructure funding’s reliance on the Commonwealth’s fuel excise,” he said.

“It’s critical that new taxes on electric vehicles are levied at a rate that doesn’t disincentivise adoption. However, they also need to be implemented sooner rather than later.”

Down came the policy wonk, mounted on his thoroughbred, up sprang the egalitarians.

Former Productivity Commission boss Peter Harris has said the inability of governments to embrace road pricing was the “greatest failure of my time in infrastructure” and would spark a “revenue crisis” in the years to come.

Resolve director Jim Reed said the move to support a road-user charging system as a replacement for fuel excise was a “fairness argument”.

“As more and more people at the top of the income scale buy electric vehicles, [people think] why should those left behind be paying more to maintain and improve the roads we all use?”

Reed said climate change had been a growing issue for the public for 15 years, driving the endorsement of things like cleaner cars.

He said support for government incentives was also high, mainly because a lot of people won’t consider electric vehicles as a realistic option until they come down in price, the range increases and charging infrastructure is more accessible.

“People can reject support for this new technology for the same reason, however,” he said. “If only rich people in urban areas can use them, why should all taxpayers fund their purchase?”

If only it were that simple. The manufacturers of electric cars are notorious for boosting the prices of their cars whenever the subsidies for their purchase increase.

If the Australians think systematically about pricing the roads as productive assets, and unbundling that from the environmental consequences priced in energy taxes, by all means, let them come waltzin' Matilda with me!