Fuel tax ‘mauling’ looms

Ifind myself in the most unfamiliar position of broadly supporting one of Cr Vicki Buck’s pet projects, the $900,000 spend up on permanent ‘‘creative lighting’’ for the Botanic Gardens. believe all of central Christchurch’s key landmarks, new and old, should be lustily illuminated to unleash a sense of energy, verve and sparkle to the cityscape.

People are like moths to a flame, as Botanic D’lights so spectacularly demonstrated.

My only reservation about the Botanic Gardens project is that the gates will remain shut and you’ll only be able to ogle the nightly spectacle from behind the fence. That’s like opening a lavish chocolate shop with drool-inducing window displays, only to ban people from stepping inside.

If extending the opening hours of the Botanic Gardens is problematic, perhaps Victoria Sq would be a better location for the city’s nightly illumination spectacular.

The lighting project is of course just one of the multitude of escapades and whims that Buck embarks upon. Senior council staff refer to them as ‘‘vims’’.

During the council’s recent Long Term Plan process, she was the driving force behind imposing a regional fuel tax on Christchurch motorists.

Buck argued that a 4c per litre fuel tax would generate $15 million annually, supposedly reducing the annual rates rise from 5.5 per cent to 2 per cent.

But the proposal was unceremoniously quashed by the Government, which won’t allow councils, aside from Auckland, to regionalise fuel taxes during its first term in office.

Yet while the city council’s pursuit of this funding mechanism remains parked until 2021, it’s ominous that such a tax is now also being sized up as the great financial saviour to Christchurch’s public transport system.

The Greater Christchurch Public Transport Joint Committee’s draft plan has flagged a fuel tax to bolster funding for its grand designs on revamping the underperforming public bus network.

All local councils are represented on Environment Canterbury’s joint committee, which is foreshadowing an annual public transport funding shortfall of $9m by 2020-21, based on current patronage trends.

Rather than trying to fill the hole with sharper hikes in regional rates, as ECan did this year, hitting motorists with a regional fuel tax is being floated from 2021.

With both ECan and the CCC lining up the motorist for a mauling, the mind boggles how severe the combined imposition of a regional fuel tax could end up being.

Regional fuel tax carries the pungent whiff of being the new and dirty tobacco excise. A convenient and highly addictive cash cow that can be mercilessly milked, morphing into a runaway financial gusher, under the dubious pretence of encouraging better societal outcomes, enhancing health and changing behaviour.

As an aside, I noticed in Australia last week, the average petrol pump price was $1.35 a litre, compared to $2.30 in Christchurch. We’re already paying through the nose on fuel excise.

There’s no doubt that greater Christchurch’s public transport system is defective, on many fronts. Only 3.7 per cent of Christchurch commuters routinely take the bus to and from work, compared to public transport commuter rates of 8 per cent in Auckland and 20 per cent in Wellington.

In terms of total annual trips, greater Christchurch bus users clock up around 14 million annual rides, well short of ECan’s stated target of 20m annual trips by 2020.

Some bus routes are so diabolically under-used that only 10 per cent of the cost of running them is covered by fares – meaning the public subsidises the passenger journey by up to $20. It would be cheaper to shout them an Uber.

Our public transport system is over-reliant on public subsidies. According to the joint committee’s draft transport plan, it’s costing $73m to operate our public transport network this year.

Canterbury ratepayers tip in $23m and the taxpayer forks out $30m. Bus fares only meet $19m of the cost.

This falls woefully short of the government’s long-standing expectation that fare revenue and the SuperGold grants cover half of the total operating costs.

Christchurch Metrocard bus fares are decidedly cheaper than most main centres. They should be substantially and incrementally increased, despite the inevitable howls of protest.

With Joe Six-pack already doing far too much of the heavy-lifting, it seriously calls into the question the odious prospect of a regional fuel tax pumping motorists for even more bus subsidy revenue.

And why should electric vehicles be given a free pass from such supplementary ‘‘behaviourchanging’’ revenue raids?

If there really is a need to aggressively encourage more commuters to travel by bus, target cars with congestion charging or toll charging on key commuter routes.

Slugging all motorists with another nasty, regressive fuel tax is just lazy, grasping and cynical.

Metrocard bus fares should be substantially and incrementally increased, despite the inevitable howls of protest.