After a well-earned rest over the Christmas Holidays the NRC team is hitting the ground running with a Select Committee appearance next week to represent our concerns on a proposed parliamentary bill to reshape how tolls can be set and whether trucks will still have a real choice about using them.

The Land Transport Management Act Amendment Bill as it is currently drafted presents a significant risk of high costs being imposed on transport operators, and therefore everyone who buys goods transported by road.

That’s because the Bill allows for a situation where trucks can be forced to use tolled roads, with no guaranteed price cap on how much those tolls may cost over time. 

You can see the danger…a privatised toll operator running a road where trucks are forced to use it, and no upper limit on the price cap. This needs to be fixed quickly.

Don’t get me wrong, NRC supports tolls. We understand that well-designed tolls can fund safer, more reliable road corridors. Where a tolled road genuinely saves time, improves safety, or lifts productivity, operators make that call themselves. Pay more, get more. That has always been the deal.

We just don’t support tolls where choice is removed, and prices are unconstrained. 

Let’s can learn from overseas rather than make this up as we go along.

In the United Kingdom and Canada, unconstrained private toll roads such as the M6 Toll and Highway 407 are now widely seen as cautionary examples. High tolls, limited accountability, and long-term public resentment followed. 

Australia has learned similar lessons. Long-term toll concessions are now typically written with tight escalation formulas, often linked to inflation within defined limits. Independent regulators such as the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal in New South Wales provide oversight. Some jurisdictions apply network-level caps or rebates to manage cumulative impacts.

NRC will be strongly advocating that the Bill be amended to require:

 - Clear and enforceable upper limits on tolls, especially where heavy vehicles have no realistic alternative route.

 - Real route choices for freight, or stronger protections where choice is removed.

 - Periodic, transparent reviews of toll impacts on freight costs and supply chains.

For those interested in more detail on this important issue, look no further than this article where James Smith, our GM of Policy and Advocacy gives an excellent overview. 

Justin Tighe-Umbers, Chief Executive, National Road Carriers Assn