It’s not hard to understand just how much Australia relies on trucks and their drivers to move our groceries and other goods all over the country. Australia is a very big place, and with rail freight in decline, the nation relies more and more on trucks.

There are about 630,000 rigid and articulated trucks carrying freight in Australia, usually every day. About 65% of them travel at least 200,000 km per year.

That doesn’t include the many smaller trucks in cities and towns distributing everything brought into those communities by the larger ones.

And they all run on fuel. So do our freight trains, our cargo ships, and the airliners that carry low-volume, high-value freight. The price of fuel, therefore, affects the cost of virtually everything we buy, especially groceries. Fuel itself is transported around Australia by trucks.

One Nation’s plan to slash government waste and put more money in Australians’ pockets includes a policy to halve the fuel excise and road user charge for the next 12 months, with an option to extend this period. Australian motorists paid more than $15 billion in fuel excise in 2023-24, with the average Australian household forking out $1283.

One Nation’s policy will cut this cost by half, to $641.50. It will also reduce the freight component of the prices we pay for virtually everything else. The price of virtually everything will come down

It’s true the fuel excise is supposed to be used to build and maintain roads, although over the past 10 years it’s evident that less than 60% of funds generated by the excise have actually been spent on land transport projects.

Halving the excise will reduce government revenue by about $7.5 billion, but One Nation’s plan to slash $90 billion in wasteful government spending means the government will be able to afford it.