Infrastructure Victoria has today published its response to the recommendations of the community panel it convened to consider changing the way Victorians pay for the transport network.

The
panel of 38 Victorians worked together over four weeks to consider the question:
Under what conditions, if any, would the
community accept a change in the way Victorians pay for roads and public
transport?

The
community panel detailed eight conditions under which they would accept a
change to the way they paid for roads and public transport.

The panel’s
conditions included some strong feedback on the importance of fairness, equity
and transparency when considering such a complex reform.

Infrastructure
Victoria Chief Executive Officer Michel Masson said the independent authority
would now undertake further research to examine the implications of all eight
panel recommendations.

 “The panel’s report provided invaluable
insights into the issues we need to examine further in order to make
recommendations to government about how pricing could be implemented in
Victoria,” Mr Masson said.

Mr
Masson said the community feedback was a crucial component of Infrastructure
Victoria’s work.

“We
can’t develop strong recommendations to government on difficult reforms such as
transport network pricing without community input.

“It’s
essential that we involve the community in the infrastructure decisions that
will affect them,” Mr Masson said.  

“We
offer our sincere thanks to all the community panel members who gave up their
time to make a valuable contribution about how the state’s infrastructure is
managed.”

About the community panel

The
panel was made up of 38 people who were independently recruited through a
process that combined random selection and stratification to ensure it included
a cross section of the community.

The panel wrote and delivered the report after a four week deliberative process. This included three face-to-face meetings and two webinars. The panel heard from a number of experts on various topics related to transport network pricing. The report consisted of eight conditions under which they would accept a change. The report also included a series of ‘minority reports’, or conditions that did not make the final list but that the panel wanted to include.

The community panel’s report and Infrastructure Victoria’s response is available at infrastructurevictoria.com.au

Media contact: Jo Davie 0411 790 073 [email protected]

Source: Victoria Infrastructures