Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a fact that Sydney has more kilometres of toll roads than any other city in the world. By 2023, we will have 12 toll roads. The obsession of the federal and New South Wales Liberal governments to slap a toll on every major motorway is a massive burden for Chifley residents. In fact, these tolls are a road tax that punishes you for not being able to afford a home close to the city. A research group recently did a report on the Sydney road toll network, showing that if you lived in the Chifley electorate, it would cost you nearly $20 one way to drive to the city. That obviously does not include the tolls on the way back. In fact, if you had to drive to the city every day for work, it would cost close to $10,000 a year—and, with awful regularity, the toll costs ratchet up, with the price of tolls going up like clockwork at three times the rate of inflation in a climate of low wage growth. Under so-called escalation rates for WestConnex and NorthConnex, tolls will rise at four per cent annually or the inflation rate—whichever's greater. CPI is dead as a doornail, so four per cent it is. These arrangements will stay in place for years. There has got to be a better way than charging this road tax for the people of Western Sydney.