Cabinet has agreed to a series of important legislative changes to enable the transition of New Zealand’s 3.5 million light vehicles to paying for our roading network through electronic road user charges, rather than petrol tax, says Transport Minister Chris Bishop.
“The abolition of petrol tax, and the move towards all vehicles (whether they be petrol, diesel, electric or hybrid) paying for roads based on distance and weight, is the biggest change to how we fund our roading network in 50 years,” Mr Bishop says.
Road user charges is a far fairer way of funding roads, than petrol tax (which is very simple though). Paying based on distance travelled and weight is fair.
However I would go one step further and ideally also have charges based on the type of road travelled. Travelling on Transmission Gully should cost you more than travelling on an unsealed gravel road. The more modern and expensive the road, the more you should pay for it.
“The current RUC system is outdated. It’s largely paper based, means people have to constantly monitor their odometers, and requires people to buy RUC in 1000 km chunks.
“We’re not going to shift millions of drivers from a simple system at the pump to queues at retailers. So instead of expanding a clunky government system, we will reform the rules to allow the market to deliver innovative, user-friendly services for drivers.
“A handful of E-RUC companies already do this for about half of our heavy vehicle fleet and there are several companies, both domestic and international, with innovative technology that could make complying with RUC cheaper and easier.”
My preferred system is to have it like my power. Automatic readings every month, and a direct debit.
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders
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