Because when you buy petrol you pay a fuel tax. When you buy diesel, you don’t. But you have to —or you’re supposed to— pay road user charges.
And, as we know, the EV drivers who have been getting away paying nothing are getting brought into the road user charge regime.
So, while the diesel might be cheaper at the pump, it kind of all evens-out once you take the RUCs into account. That’s the thinking anyway.
But the New Zealand Initiative think tank is saying today: “Wrong, it doesn’t even out at all”. They’re saying it’s actually very uneven.
They’re saying today that we need to ditch the current road-user charging model because it's old-hat and isn't a fair way of getting the money needed to build and maintain roads.
And they’re not just saying ‘stop doing what we’re doing’. They’ve also come up with an idea that they think would be fairer - which I agree with, to a point. And I’ll get to where I have reservations about it.
So what the New Zealand Initiative wants to see is a system using things like smart technology to monitor vehicles and set individual charges for every vehicle owner based on the types of vehicles we drive, how far we drive and when we drive.
It says a system like this would also make it easy to bring-in congestion charging, which it believes is also necessary to get traffic flowing more freely in our cities.
So, essentially, what it's proposing is a different type of user-pays system to fund our roads instead of the petrol taxes and road user charges we currently have.
It says it wouldn’t necessarily increase the revenue the Government gets from motorists, but it would spread the cost burden more evenly and fairly.
Example: the impact of flat fuel taxes on people on low incomes. The NZ Initiative makes the assumption that if you're on a low income, you tend to have a vehicle or vehicles that are less fuel efficient than something that’s rolled-of the production line this year.
So you might not actually use the roads any more than the flash Harry with the new car. But you are penalised because your car’s less fuel efficient.
So, generally, I get the thinking and I like the idea. But you’re not going to get me installing devices in my vehicles that keep a record of what I do with them.
Call me paranoid, but I think there is enough monitoring going on. Find my iPhone, cameras everywhere. So, if this went ahead, I’d be saying ‘no thanks’ to the “smart” part of all this —the electronic monitoring— and I'd have to pay my road user charge ahead of time. Just like the system we have in place now.
So, yes, I agree that the way we do it now is cack-handed and clumsy and we need to do things differently.
And, yes, taxing people on the basis of road use instead of fuel consumption makes much more sense.
But it’s a definite 'no' from me when it comes to installing more devices to keep tabs on what I'm up to.
John MacDonald is the Canterbury Mornings host on Newstalk ZB Christchurch. - where this article was sourced.
So, while the diesel might be cheaper at the pump, it kind of all evens-out once you take the RUCs into account. That’s the thinking anyway.
But the New Zealand Initiative think tank is saying today: “Wrong, it doesn’t even out at all”. They’re saying it’s actually very uneven.
They’re saying today that we need to ditch the current road-user charging model because it's old-hat and isn't a fair way of getting the money needed to build and maintain roads.
And they’re not just saying ‘stop doing what we’re doing’. They’ve also come up with an idea that they think would be fairer - which I agree with, to a point. And I’ll get to where I have reservations about it.
So what the New Zealand Initiative wants to see is a system using things like smart technology to monitor vehicles and set individual charges for every vehicle owner based on the types of vehicles we drive, how far we drive and when we drive.
It says a system like this would also make it easy to bring-in congestion charging, which it believes is also necessary to get traffic flowing more freely in our cities.
So, essentially, what it's proposing is a different type of user-pays system to fund our roads instead of the petrol taxes and road user charges we currently have.
It says it wouldn’t necessarily increase the revenue the Government gets from motorists, but it would spread the cost burden more evenly and fairly.
Example: the impact of flat fuel taxes on people on low incomes. The NZ Initiative makes the assumption that if you're on a low income, you tend to have a vehicle or vehicles that are less fuel efficient than something that’s rolled-of the production line this year.
So you might not actually use the roads any more than the flash Harry with the new car. But you are penalised because your car’s less fuel efficient.
So, generally, I get the thinking and I like the idea. But you’re not going to get me installing devices in my vehicles that keep a record of what I do with them.
Call me paranoid, but I think there is enough monitoring going on. Find my iPhone, cameras everywhere. So, if this went ahead, I’d be saying ‘no thanks’ to the “smart” part of all this —the electronic monitoring— and I'd have to pay my road user charge ahead of time. Just like the system we have in place now.
So, yes, I agree that the way we do it now is cack-handed and clumsy and we need to do things differently.
And, yes, taxing people on the basis of road use instead of fuel consumption makes much more sense.
But it’s a definite 'no' from me when it comes to installing more devices to keep tabs on what I'm up to.
John MacDonald is the Canterbury Mornings host on Newstalk ZB Christchurch. - where this article was sourced.
2 comments:
Iam told that there is a fairly high number of vehicles on the road that are neither warranted or registered at present so why would these people bother to pay RUC but when they fill up with petrol they contribute to road costs.
The other glaring problem is for the low income people to be able to accumulat the hundreds of dollars to pay for the RUC.
As far as we are concerned just stop all the BS about making it fairer when all they want to do is charge more while telling us it is for our own good.
I challenge the minister to put it to an online poll to gather peoples reponse.
The fact that the govt believes they have the mandate to force NZers to place these track & trace devices in their vehicles tells me all I need to know & is concerning for several reasons outside the blatant violation of our inalienable rights to privacy & property.
I have questions like...
As eRoad is most likely to get the contract to supply, install, maintain & monitor these devices, should we be looking into who the companies owners/shareholders are for conflict of interest or "quid pro quo" ? Follow the money.
eRoad devices can not only track your location & path via GPS, but can record your speed, braking & lane changes opening the door to remote ticketing for "alleged" traffic offenses with the inevitable lack of transparency & right of recourse & given that the govt want to automatically deduct RUCs from your acct (soon to come CBDCs ?), what is to stop them from automatically deducting fines ?
The pamphlet states that the govt "may" initially subsidise the cost of the purchase & installation of these devices leaving the remainder to pay themselves for the loss of their privacy & property rights. WTF ?
How much will we paying for administrative costs out of the money that is supposed to go towards building & fixing our roads ?
What guarantee do we have that the funds generated will be apportioned fairly & not just spent on Auckland ?
The proposal from the NZ Initiative is straight out of Agenda 2030 & the WEFs Smart City playbook, is nothing more than a globalist power/money grab & needs to be rejected out of hand.
Imagine the scenario whereby NZ owned its resources instead of charging the Ozzies 2-3 % tax for the privilege of raping us. Imagine if we had the means to refine our own fuel instead of importing it. We would have more than enough money to pay to fix ALL our failing infrastructure.
The cheapest & fairest option for me would be to pay at the pump as with the mileage I do, a full tank of diesel lasts me well over a month.
Post a Comment