Goff backs petrol tax and trams

Auckland Mayor Phil Goff has welcomed a regional fuel tax to help fund a multibillion-dollar investment in modern trams and other transport projects for the city.

The former Labour MP is fully on board the new Labour-led Government’s plan for modern trams to both the airport and West Auckland and advocated a regional petrol tax during last year’s mayoral campaign.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Transport Minister Phil Twyford have confirmed that the new Government will change the law to allow Auckland Council to introduce a regional petrol tax and make an immediate start on trams from the CBD to the airport and Westgate in the west of the city.

Comments flowing into the Herald newsdesk yesterday were heavily against the new tax, but a readers’ poll on the website was more evenly split, showing 49 per cent of 13,300 people so far oppose the tax, 42 per cent support it and 7 per cent say “maybe”.

Goff said: “A fuel tax is effective and cheap, and easy to administer. It will help ensure that Auckland can pay its share of the nearly $27 billion expenditure on transport infrastructure over the next 10 years.

“Without this level of investment our rapidly growing population will worsen congestion on our roads with mounting costs from frustration and lost productivity.”

Goff said a regional fuel tax of 10c a litre would raise twice as much as the Interim Transport Levy to invest in new transport infrastructure, but did not say if the levy, an 11th-hour addition to the 10-year budget in 2015, would end.