I think it's a great idea. I have 3 vehicles, which most years would not do 3000 kilometres each, although occasionally one might get to to 6 or so. It would certainly reduce my rego bill.

Similarly there are insurance companies in the UK who insure the driver, who can then drive any vehicle nominated on the one policy. This is great, as it keeps costs down, & works well, as you can only drive one car at a time. It also stops the kids borrowing the family car, unless you are silly enough to insure them.

On the other hand, before I retired my commute was 150Km a day, & with my ladies running about 65Km it would have been expensive.

The worst thing with such ideas, it would have to be collected by the commonwealth, & the distribution would then become doubtful. I would have been very vocal in resistance to the GST, if I had known it was going to be used to prop up the failed states, Tasmania & South Australia. I think something similar would be bound to happen with the vote buying facility it offers.

In passing, we would be well advised to seriously resist any increase in GST rates or range of goods, unless we get a guarantee that all moneys collected will go back to the states who contributed them. It is time to make the failed states pay for their own stupidity in discouraging industry & jobs.

Great to see there's general support here for making license/ insurance costs payable on fuel rather than annually.

Mars.. "nationwide but inexpensive yearly road worthy examination either by licensed garages' -is good policy too. Has been compulsory in NZ for decades - their roads are so steep and winding that it is simply too risky to have vehicles with poor brakes or steering.

Rhosty I agree that its unfair for country people to pay more for fuel than those in the city (having lived and worked half my life in country towns).

How about a congestion tax levied only at city fuel outlets? This would bring parity to city and country prices.

I disagree that country people have no options. In the towns I lived in there were bus and or train services at least daily to the city.

Also, it's not as if you can't do things in small cars. Even farmers and tradies can have a small or electric vehicle for many trips, where they don't have to carry a load. My wife and I drove our 1 litre car from Perth to Sydney and back via Melbourne, with all our camping gear, averaging 100 kph with the a/c on.

Your country towns must be pretty big Roses1. All the towns I know, even near the cities have no public transport other than school busses. Adults of course are not permitted to ride on them.

After that damn fool Goss came to power he removed the passenger rail services from most country areas. In many towns, with no car you were every bit as trapped in the town as any middle ages surf.

I would love to know the ethnic component of crimes involving driving without a license, and driving an unregistered vehicle.

In 1993, the various ethnic lobby groups successfully lobbied the federal government to prevent the Australian Bureau of Statistics from collecting, collating, and analysing any statistics on ethnic related crime.

The result in my own city of Sydney, is that those following the news have to piece together news items to figure out who is committing the crimes. What ethnicity an offender is, in say a rape case, can only be deduced when his family turn up at court and promptly attack the news crews. Or you might figure out what is going on when a report comes in that states that the Police in Bankstown routinely arrest unlicensed drivers, by the simple expedient of standing on the courthouse steps,and watching those who have just lost their licenses get in their cars and drive away.

John Cleese's most famous "Faulty Towers" sketch was his order to his hotel staff to "don't mention the war" to visiting German guests. Not to be outdone in pure lunacy, our police and politicians have instated a "don't mention the "I" word when it comes to terrorism and a complete contempt for the laws of NSW.

Similarly, a news report can come in saying that the NSW Police are concerned about the number of "African" drivers caught driving unlicensed and unregistered. The term "African" can be race neutral as the police can pretend that the term "Africans" could include Boers and white Rhodesians. Ex Victorian Police Commissioner Christine Nixon used the same scam to hide the extent of crime caused by Sudanese and Somalis living in Melbourne by including white Africans in the statistics of "African" crime in Melbourne.

Hey Paul Davies. Instead of dreaming up novel ways of collecting road taxes, which will not do anything about unlicensed drivers anyway, why don't we just exclude those ethnicities from immigrating to Australia who are most prone to this sort of behaviour?

Rego is more than just revenue raising. It is also ensuring that both the car and owner are road worthy.

I do support the 3rd party insurance being funded from a fuel levy though.

I've said for years that rego should be scrapped in favor of a fuel levy, meaning the more one drives, the more they pay for road use. What on earth could be fairer than that!

Il give two examples of truck rego's that are out of balance, a Lynfox truck, and a logging truck.

The Lynfox truck operates 24/7 365 days of the year while a logging truck is lucky to operate for six months of the year due to weather restrictions, yet both pay the same rego fees. Ridiculous!