Wednesday, 31 July 2024

Cost of living

Trung LUU (Western Metropolitan) (18:30): (1015) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety regarding car registration fees. The action I seek is for the minister to consider easing the burden on Victorian families by reducing the car rego fee to align with the rates of other states like New South Wales. In the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, the average Victorian family is struggling to put food on the table, yet Victorians are paying the highest rego fees amongst all states. Victorians are paying 116 per cent more than Western Australians and 76 per cent more than people in New South Wales. These figures tell a dark story about the Allan Labor government’s budget mismanagement and how Victorians are paying the price.

My constituents in the western suburbs are already left bearing with too few transportation options, and Premier Allan cancelling the electrification of the Melton and Wyndham railway lines has worsened the connectivity out west. On average in the western suburbs families own two to three cars to ensure that all members of the family can get to work – because of the lack of transport. As Graham Currie, professor of public transport at Monash University, has stated:

There’s no choice for them to have a car, there’s very little public transport on the fringe …

Minister, rather than accelerating the financial burden on hardworking Victorian families, it is time we shift the gear and put the cost of rego in reverse. So I ask again: will the minister consider reducing the car registration fee to align with the rates in other states like New South Wales to help Victorian families deal with the cost-of-living crisis and make the west a more livable place for Victorian families?