NRC’s petition to postpone RUC increase presented with 15,849 signatures
OUR PETITION TO POSTPONE THE Government’s 5.3% user charges (RUC) increase secured 15,859 signatures and was presented to Parliament by ACT Party leader David Seymour at the end of June.
I would like to thank everyone who took the time to sign the petition.We felt very strongly that, at a time when the Government was handing out money and support packages to almost every industry, hitting ours with an extra tax was an insult to the good work the road transport industry does to keep the country’s supply chain moving. The industry is sick of been a tax collection agent for the government.
Our thanks to Mr Seymour for his support on this important matter and we applaud his recognition of the importance of our industry before, during and after the lockdown
By the time you read this we will know whether the petition has been successful.
At the time of writing it seems unlikely the Government will postpone the increase. However, the petition has galvanised the industry, and will be noticed by Parliamentarians.
Such was the depth of feeling on this issue that the petition had gained more than 8000 signatures in the first 24 hours after it was launched, on June 9.
The petition also quickly gained huge momentum on Facebook with 525 comments, 600 likes and 2300 shares in that first 24-hour period. By the time the petition closed on June 25 we had more than 1200 comments, 1700 likes and 3800 shares.
The petition’s signatures and social media response shows it’s something the road transport sector cares about and that the general public and consumers are behind us as well.
We issued a strongly-worded media release saying the RUC increase was a “kick in the guts” to the trucking industry that kept the country moving during lockdown.
On behalf of the industry, we said transport operators were seriously aggrieved by the planned RUC increase and we also made the point that from a public perspective this increase will affect everyone, because the cost of moving freight must ultimately be built into the price of goods.
The news release was picked up and broadcast by commercial radio stations and covered by industry magazines.
We witnessed the Government “rewarding” many other sectors such as arts and music, racing and tourism with big payouts. This is fine, but we see an essential service such as road transport instead being punished for its efforts. If it wasn’t for road freight none of these other sectors would be possible, particularly racing and tourism.
In our communications, we said the industry was willing to continue paying RUC as it was, but this needs to go into the currently badlymaintained roading networks and to build new infrastructure that allows the efficient flow of freight. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown how essential road freight is, as did the Christchurch and Kaikoura earthquakes.
The Parliamentary petition and news release were part of a co-ordinated approach. The Road Transport Forum lobbied the Government that the National Land Transport Fund (NLTF) is below budget, roading repairs have not kept pace with the growth of revenue generated from heavy vehicles, and an economic downturn will affect load sizes rather than distance travelled.
We may not have won the battle to have the RUC increase postponed but I’m proud to say we have listened to the industry’s concerns and responded quickly to make those concerns heard by the Government and New Zealanders. It’s been really heartening that the actions we took have been so well supported by the industry and the public.
Winning Government recognition and support for the industry is a longterm undertaking and we will continue to fight hard to make sure the industry’s voice is heard. T&D