I want to see something similar promoting products that have been transported by rail rather than by road.
Here's the argument, a letter in Crikey.com.au, that prompted this thought:
James McDonald writes: Re. "Kevin and Brendan fiddle with excise as the world burns". Never mind your fuel tank, what about the truck that brought your lunch today? For a lateral way of beating fuel pain we should look at boosting freight rail in this country for regular non-bulk haul. The price at the pumps is an easy rally point for consumer desperation, but try to estimate the road-transport cost we pay for our apples and bread. Layer upon layer, somewhere along the line that cost burdens every thing we buy. But according to the Freight Rail Operators Group, rail transport is nine times more energy efficient than road. A 2005 Australasian Railway Association study estimated a potential for $27 billion increase in Australia's GDP from reforming our freight rail network. See last year's House of Reps report on the freight transport bottlenecks and inefficiencies that hold us back more and more every year, and its proposed solutions. How about if our reformer PM looks at spending the lion's share of infrastructure budget on rail reform, both freight and passenger, instead of only $192 million on all rail combined and the rest of the billions on roads? Trucks carry 80 per cent of our non-bulk freight other than to and from WA (for which rail moves 80 per cent, and over that distance sea transport is even more efficient). It doesn't need to. Exports are suffering too, ports clogged with ships waiting weeks to be loaded. Only banana republics can't get their railways sorted out. There are brilliant modern technologies out there. Road-railer trailers can be transferred between train and truck at distribution points, so trucks can reach journey end-points without the need to unload the goods inside. We're not short of steel. Road use by the heaviest vehicles could be reduced, bringing down maintenance, congestion, hazards, journey times and thus fuel consumption by those vehicles still on the road. The list of potential benefits goes on. Our long-haul truck drivers are heroes who've carried this whole country for years, but it's time to offer those of them who want it a safer job in a federally reformed freight rail industry. Expensive, yes. And lacking the instant smiley gratification of road upgrades in marginal seats. But also anti-inflationary, growth-making, and planet-saving.
