Green Absurdity!

Greg Bush
( Owner/Driver )

Just when you thought the trucking industry was making a strong recovery after receiving a pummelling at the hands of the recent "global financial crisis", along come the Greens, with ideas man and leader Senator Bob Brown and senate hopeful Lee Rhiannon.

Registration charges, particularly for B-doubles, have already been hard hit this year, thanks to a significant increase. But that's not enough for Brown and his band of merry men and women.

The Greens have come out with a proposal of increasing registration fees even further, up to the tidy sum of $23,000 for each B-double. The Greens figure the rego price hike will be an irresistable incentive to take freight off the smelly, dirty monsters which are billowing out toxic gases up and down our pristine highways and load it all on rail instead.

That way, the Greens reason it will go a long way to turning the road transport's carbon footprint into a fingerprint.

However, as the Australian Trucking Association ( ATA ) CEO Stuart St Clair rightly points out, "supermarkets don't have railway sidings out the back".

So, who is going to pay for these extra charges. Not the truck owner, that's for sure. If the Greens plan comes to fruition, the truck operator will simply pass his problem down the line to someone else-ultimately the consumer.

Today's trucks are the most efficent in road transport history. Technology is continually evolving, while increasing emissions regulations around the world are keeping manufacturers on their toes to build cleaner vehicles.

Rail, on the other hand, has never been identified as a mode that delivers general freight. It offers nowhere near the flexibility of road transport, and its environmental advantages are highly questionable. But Brown and his crew see it as the great white hope.

It harks back to the bad old days when rail was heavily subsidised and trucks were restricted on where and when they could take to the highways.

Unfortunately for the Greens, they, like the rest of us, will end up paying more for anything sold on shop floors across Australia.

The Greens already have the balance of power in the upper house, and are using it to force their harebrained schemes down the throat of ordinary Australians by blocking any bill they choose to. At the same time, they can fire up all their followers, who are somehow of the belief that fairies drop down from the sky and hand-deliver goods to retail outlets around the country.

The Greens will also have no problem getting the mainstream press onside. Any opportunity to stick the boot into trucking is accepted with glee.

Mind you, although Brown is at the helm, some of these absurd headline-grabbing Green policies are coming from senate candidate Rhiannon, who seems to be offering an opinion on anything she feels will attract media attention.