And, adding insult to injury, imagine then receiving a ‘penalty’ charge for making a late declaration of the reading.įurthermore, that ‘penalty’ is calculated based on the ‘average distance’ travelled, which may be far more than you actually used your vehicle. Imagine finding your car has been deregistered, even though you paid your rego, because you failed to provide an odometer reading while you were overseas. Or travelling thousands of kilometres on fuel in your plug-in hybrid vehicle in remote parts of Australia with no charging stations and being charged hundreds of dollars for road use, despite having already paid the Commonwealth fuel excise on all those kilometres. Imagine buying an electric vehicle, and then being charged for more kilometres than you have driven, because ‘this average calculation is bound by legislation’. And while this report focuses on the actions of the Department of Transport and Planning, there are broader lessons for the public sector about the dangers of making policy on the run (or not making it at all), and the importance of exercising discretion. Nor do we consider whether it is good public policy to impose a charge on electric vehicles when the Government has adopted a ‘roadmap to net-zero emissions and a climate resilient Victoria by 2050’.īut thousands of people have been affected by the charge since it came into effect in 2021, many of them unfairly. This investigation does not touch on the validity of the legislation, plainly a matter for the High Court. So why would the Ombudsman put out a report on legislation that may be struck down? The charge is imposed by the Zero and Low Emission Vehicle Distance-based Charge Act 2021 – Victorian legislation, the validity of which is being challenged in the High Court. To ensure that owners of ZLEVs pay their ‘fair share’, they are charged for each kilometre they travel on public roads, including outside Victoria. Owners of fuel-powered vehicles contribute to the maintenance of roads through the Commonwealth fuel excise. This report is about the application of the State Government’s road-user charge for electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (zero and low emission vehicles, or ’ZLEVs’).
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