Government blocks fuel tax for city

The Government has quashed any move by the Christchurch City Council to introduce a fuel tax in the next three years.

The council wants to introduce a fuel tax to help it repair earthquake-damaged roads, but it needs Government permission.

A 10-cent-a-litre fuel tax is planned for Auckland, but Transport Minister Phil Twyford said yesterday the Government would not allow any other region to introduce a fuel tax during its first term in office. He has not ruled out their applying after that time.

Twyford said Auckland was an extreme case because of the scale of the growth there and the lack of investment in transport infrastructure.

He said the Government understood how hard the rebuild had been on the people of Christchurch, but the Government was already spending more than $900 million on motorway projects in the city.

The council was looking at other sources of revenue as rate increases had not been enough to repair or replace all that was lost in the earthquakes.

Christchurch ratepayers face a

5.5 per cent rate increase for the

2018-19 year. This is on top of seven years of rates increases averaging

6.7 per cent each year. The council’s draft 10-year budget, the Long Term Plan which will be released for consultation on March 9, proposes an average rate increase of 4.37 per cent each year.

The council estimated it would take more than 20 years to get the city’s roads into a condition in line with other New Zealand cities.

A 4c a litre tax on petrol and diesel in Christchurch would raise at least $15m annually, based on the 500 million litres of fuel purchased in Christchurch each year.

The 2010 and 2011 earthquakes have so far cost the council $3.6 billion and another $4b needs to be spent during the next 30 years to return the city’s assets to their preearthquake condition, a Deloitte report found.

City councillor Vicki Buck said this week that if the council had a fuel tax, the proposed 2018-19 rate increase would be just 1.9 per cent – not 5.5 per cent.

‘‘I don’t understand why Auckland can have something and we can’t.’’

AA infrastructure principal adviser Barney Irvine said the AA wanted to see how the fuel tax played out in Auckland before it was introduced anywhere else in the country.

The small size of Christchurch’s collection area would be a concern, because it would be much easier for motorists to drive across the city boundary to neighbouring districts that did not have a charge.

‘‘The people of Christchurch would need to decide.’’

He said there had been some degree of willingness from Auckland residents to pay the tax.

‘‘I would be very surprised anywhere near that level of support existed in Christchurch.’’

A self-selecting Stuff poll of 4300 voters showed 22 per cent supported a fuel tax in Christchurch and 78 per cent were against the idea.