Australians are paying the price of Scott Morrison's failure to protect them from skyrocketing price of fuel and surging inflation, RTBU National Secretary Mark Diamond said today.
"Yesterday's shock inflation figure of 5.1 per cent included a 13.7 per cent increase in total transport costs, and whopping 35.1 per cent increase in the cost of automotive fuel over the past 12 months," Mark Diamond said.
"Blind Freddy could have seen that petrol prices would inevitably go up, so a sensible government would have promoted alternative fuel vehicles and invested in public transport infrastructure to give commuters affordable alternatives.
"Instead, Prime Minister Scott Morrison just smirked and made stupid jokes about how electric vehicles would 'end the weekend'. Now Australians are being held hostage to the bowser.
"Five per cent inflation is Scott Morrison's Stupidity Tax, and all Australians are paying it."
Mark Diamond said Australia's crumbling transport networks needed urgent attention from the Federal Government.
"While much of Australia was in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, the country's transport networks kept on going.
"But the reality is that many of those networks are slow, congested, and falling apart.
"The RTBU is calling on politicians to back new projects for rail freight and public transport, and to support the growth of good secure jobs in the transport sector."
Mark Diamond said the RTBU was asking all candidates in the Federal election to sign a pledge showing their support for faster, safer, better passenger and freight transport networks.
Voters would be able to see which candidates supported better transport by checking in to the campaign web page – www rtbu.org.au/fastlane - over the course of the election campaign.
PUT TRANSPORT IN THE FAST LANE CANDIDATE'S PLEDGE
I pledge to support measures that lead to faster, safer and better passenger and freight transport networks across Australia, including:
• Building more trains, trams and buses in Australia;
• Increasing Federal investment in public transport to provide Australians with better access to services and reduce our reliance on expensive imported petrol;
• Developing a long-term plan to grow jobs in the rail freight sector
• Better integration of rail, road, sea and air transport; and
• Ensuring people doing the same job have the same pay and same standards of workplace safety
