Taking (Vander)stock: the challenge of road revenue sources in Australia’s clean energy future

In late 2023, the High Court of Australia struck down the Victorian scheme requiring users of zero and low-emission vehicles (ZLEV) to pay a distance-based charge. It did so on the basis that the scheme imposed a ‘duty of excise’ and therefore impinged on the Commonwealth’s exclusive power under s 90 of the federal Constitution to levy such duties. This has sent the Australian states and territories back to the drawing board in trying to raise money from ZLEV owners to pay their share of road maintenance funding, bearing in mind that the traditional source of such funding is the Commonwealth’s fuel excise. In this episode, Associate Professor Matthew Bell speaks with Professor Miranda Stewart of Melbourne Law School, and Peter Holcombe Henley and Mason Rogers of Clayton Utz about the Court’s decision and its implications. They unpack and explain the decision, noting that it was reached by a bare majority, and explore its implications for Australia’s road revenue and fiscal federalism.    Links:  Zero and Low Emission Vehicle Distance-based Charge Act 2021 (Vic) Vanderstock v Victoria [2023] HCA 30 (18 October 2023) LK Weis, ‘Vanderstock v Victoria: Fiscal Federalism Meets Environmental Constitutionalism?’ (2024) 36(2) Journal of Environmental Law 253