I was half expecting Spardo or Dig to stick their head around the corner. 
Talk about spin. Trucks pay tens of thousands of dollars rego, before they can think about venturing onto the roads. Once on the road, half the cost of fuel is taxes and excise, costs not paid by rail.
This battle has been fought for the past seventy odd years. The Hughes and Vale court case challenged the state governments’ rights to charge road tax, on interstate transport. It was a constitutional argument, with the Constitution stating that there was no impedance allowed to interstate commerce.
Road tax and various other impediments were stumbling blocks intended to give rail many advantages.
As a protest to highlight the greater efficiencies of the fledgling interstate road transport industry, a copy of the Constitution was pushed almost 1,000 kilometres, from Melbourne to Sydney, in a wheelbarrow. The journey took eleven days, beating the train by two days.
The court case dragged on for years, with appeals and ending up in the Privy Council, in London. Eventually the decision came down in favour of the road transport industry, the State Government of NSW had breached Section 92 of the Constitution. This case had ser a precedent, forcing the hand of the other state governments.
Road transport is still favoured on the commercial grounds of speed and cost. The private rail operators are simply trying to egg the ignorant public, into objecting to to trucks. The irony being that the congestion will increase, should rail interests succeed in their quest. The congestion is not on the Hume Highway, but at each end, exactly where the rail yards are. Many more, smaller trucks will be needed to take the freight to and from the Sydney and Melbourne goods yards.
Oh how gullible the average punter is!