Goff rejects fuel tax opposition
Mayor Phil Goff is pushing back on criticisms his Auckland regional fuel tax will hurt rather than help.
Critics of an anticipated 10c per litre petrol tax to help fund the region’s transport infrastructure complain it will encourage a fuel black market, out-of-region fuel buying and hurt the poor.
The first term super city mayor has no time for such red herring arguments opposing the fuel tax, that was confirmed by incoming Transport Minister Phil Twyford on Thursday.
‘‘Nobody is going to spend an hour travelling outside [of Auckland] to save 10c a litre,’’ Goff said. And he pointed out petrol prices outside of Auckland were generally higher anyway.
Goff said he would introduce the fuel tax as soon as he can and he has a mandate to do so.
‘‘Right through the election campaign I campaigned on this, I had mayoral candidate opponents that said ‘we’re not going to do it’,
‘‘We’ve discussed this with people and the first thing they say is, ‘I don’t want to pay anymore tax,’ and then you say, ‘well these are the options, we pay no more tax, have no more money and have increasing congestion, frustration and lost productivity – would you rather us do something or nothing?’
‘‘We’ve got to tackle this Auckland infrastructure problem and pay our fair share of it’’.
The current $114-per-year interim transport levy would be dropped when ‘‘we start to get the revenue from a fuel tax’’, Goff said.
The tax would help contribute about $120 million a year toward the new Labour government’s promised 10 year, $27 billion Auckland transport infrastructure spend including light rail.
Auckland’s poorest residents could be hurt most by a fuel tax, forced to choose between fillingup cars, or stocking the pantry.
But Goff said light rail would eventually ‘‘go through some of our poorest neighbourhoods and would make it more accessible and convenient for those people to travel around Auckland’’.
Goff dodged answering whether tickets on new public transport services like light rail would be more expensive while acknowledging it would take several years for tax revenue raised to materialise as new public transport services.
It would take years to reach ‘‘final delivery’’ on such services, Goff said.