Labour has promised it will not raise fuel taxes across the next Parliamentary term. That’s a basic cost-of-living politics move.
But it’s going to hurt the transport system.
There is already a shortage of funding this year of up to $300m, and lots of projects are in trouble unless they are a RONS.
For those who need more transport funding in their area whether for public transport subsidies or for new transport projects, this is a big problem.
It’s also something of a cultural shock to come.
We should all know by now that the government will shift from petrol taxes to every single vehicle having to pay Road User Charges like diesel vehicles do already.
That’s every single one of us, in time, with a RUC account. In return for wiping fuel taxes out.
The legislation was passed for this in 2026 and will begin rollout next year and 2028.
There is also a big problem in funding coming up due to how NZTA is going to pay debt back.
There may well be more Crown investment straight to NZTA to come, but there’s grounds for skepticism as any future government wrestles with its consistent gap between expenditure and its income.
Labour may intend in part to make up the big funding shortfall with congestion charging in Auckland. Auckland at least, in time more cities will get it.
That’s billions and billinos of revenue on the state highway network’s busiest points, driven from a system that is also driving behavioural change.
It will still take a couple of years to get this transport revenue going.
But it’s going to happen, probably late next term, and it is a big way a Hipkins government can control fuel-price driven inflation as he has promised.
Intended outcome:
More transport system expenditure, more effective driver behaviour change, with more transport income.
Anon
Good question. Perhaps put Trevor Mallard in charge of the matter, with his Irish sojourn at his back he may have brought back some great ideas from the Celtic Tiger.
Yes, indeed. Let's bring back the Moa……
First up : RONS
Assuming a Left Govt Nov '26 . IMO a very sharp pencil needs utilised on these so called essentials. NZ can neither afford them or indeed justify same.Put the money into Rail (Heavy AND Light ),Public Transport…of which thanks to Incognito, I (and others) on The Standard have seen Labours proposed. (as BG said…needs more profile !)
Re the Congestion Charges. I get the stick aspect. However IMO the Public needs some more available carrots. Which as with Bus etc; Labour seems to be getting to…..
That Link is in the OP but here are some money reasons…for those who arent quite understanding of the Climate Problem, but need same.Of course the AA is not so keen….but hey, they exist because of private Automobiles !
I could add about how NZ cities were, and are still, designed around cars…there is some visceral cooker hate when 15/20 minute Towns are mentioned?
I have made comment many times on the whole Sustainable Transport (Public and other) issue.So many Links…maybe another time.
Never going to happen under NACT1. For some positive movement on this we need a Labour AND Green Govt Nov '26.
Basically: don't do the RoNS.
Accept that the current transport programme has left the next government with an extremely constrained funding envelope, and prioritise accordingly.
Redirect capital towards the projects that deliver the greatest benefits per dollar, including rail and public transport, rather than treating a politically selected motorway programme as untouchable.
If we're going to constrain revenue, then we also have to constrain expenditure. That means being willing to say no to expensive road projects where the benefits don't justify the costs.
The current NLTF funding envelope is more than enough to build and maintain an efficient, climate-resilient and equitable transport system. It just isn't enough to do all that on top of MOAR ROADZ.
Not a new idea but lprent touched on it in a recent post of his.
"Increasing the RUC to being based on actual loaded wheel weights.. "
I can hear all the TINAs shrieking at the proposal. Prices!
There is rail & coastal shipping for the movement of mass up and down the country.
Wise on three levels:
Increased revenue for the state.
A chance to ignore and push back at what must be one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the country.
Emissions reductions.
If we want more freight on rail, build a rail freight system people actually want to use.
There has always been a degree of cross-subsidisation in RUC. It's a cost-allocation mechanism for funding a network, not an attempt to calculate the exact marginal cost imposed by every individual vehicle journey. Even Type 1 and 2 vehicles don't literally pay the full cost of the roads they use.
You could certainly make that allocation more precise. Actual laden axle weights would be one way. But then why stop there? Heavy-vehicle pavement damage is concentrated on particular routes, and the same axle loading can have very different effects depending on the pavement. A genuinely accurate system would therefore need to account for weight, axle configuration, location, pavement characteristics and distance travelled.
Technically, we could increasingly do that. But complexity isn't free. You then need measurement equipment, certification, enforcement, data collection, administration, dispute processes and so on, all to produce a somewhat more precise allocation of costs.
The current RUC system is deliberately an abstraction. Heavier vehicles generally pay more, lighter vehicles generally pay less, and we accept some averaging and cross-subsidisation in return for having a system that is reasonably comprehensible and administratively tractable. Having once been a RUC assessor, I think that's actually a pretty sensible trade-off. It's good enough.
More importantly, if the policy objective is modal shift, increasing the complexity and cost of RUC may be solving the wrong problem.
Increasing RUC makes trucks more expensive. It doesn't make rail faster, more reliable, more accessible or better connected. And for plenty of freight movements the truck remains necessary anyway.
If heavy vehicles aren't paying an appropriate share of road costs, by all means fix that on its own merits. But don't confuse punishing the incumbent mode with building a competitive alternative.
If we want more freight on rail and coastal shipping, invest in the infrastructure, capacity and intermodal connections that make them the obvious commercial choice for the freight they're good at carrying. Let trucks do the things trucks are good at.
Use prices to reflect costs. Use investment to create alternatives.
That's a much better system design than trying to make RUC simultaneously fund the road network, perfectly allocate every externality, and coerce freight onto another mode.