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DISCUSSIONS * New Zealand - Greens so wrong on trucks
Well why should I be surprised? The Green party response to the truckers protesting against a government that lied to them is to say "It is time to stop subsidising the trucking industry"...
New Zealand -Liberty Scott - (originally published) July 03, 2008: -- ... I've fisked this nonsense before, but if you dare... read on... You really do have to wonder how these people can say on one side of their face don't subsidise one industry, but go ahead, subsidise the competing one to the hilt!... They say "don't subsidise trucks"... Are trucks subsidised? Well as usual the simpleton kneejerk headline grabbing approach of the Greens obfuscates, confuses, distorts and frankly gets it very wrong... OK let's pull that one apart:
1. "At the moment" is wrong, the study was a snapshot of 2001/2002 statistics. Before the government bought back the track or the entire railway, before it started subsidising the maintenance of the railway track and before it increased Road User Charges on heavy trucks twice. Rail freight users are undoubtedly paying less than the putative 82% and truck "drivers" (well the owners) will be paying more than they are now. That's if we accept those figures, and I don't. After all I've read the report, many times.
2. If you break down the costs, which are total costs, then we go from costs that are real and actual, to ones that are putative and notional. This is when it gets complicated...
... The "56%" recovery of truck costs includes such things as return on capital of recoverable assets. Now since rail isn't expected to make a return on capital on the track and right of way, we can remove those from trucks too. Suddenly this 56% figure goes up to 72%. However that includes externalities mainly for pollution. The air pollution figure is telling, as it is back in the days when diesel was dirty with 1500ppm of sulphur (which is the dominant contributor to PM10 - particulate matter, which is by far the most damaging pollutant). Diesel now has 3% of the sulphur that it had in 2001/2002, easily stripping out the majority of the air pollution "cost". Then there is noise, which is valued at $87m. Now noise tends to be factored into property values, so arguably can be stripped out as well. So now this 56% cost recovery figure is 91%...
Labels: discussions trucks subsidising
posted by Unknown @ 11:23 AM
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