16 February 2017

Mayor Goff disappointed at Government’s fuel tax decision

Mayor Phil Goff today expressed his disappointment at the Government’s decision to rule out a regional fuel tax despite Auckland’s worsening traffic congestion.

“While the Government has the power to rule out a fuel tax, it has a duty to the people of Auckland to come back to Council with alternative solutions. Aucklanders are fed up with sitting in their cars on the motorway for hours at a time. It’s lost time for them and lost productivity for the city,” said Phil Goff.

“People want the Government to work with Council to find an agreed solution. In my view a regional fuel tax is a fair, effective and efficient way of helping close the current $400m a year gap in transport funding.”

The Mayor said that putting the burden of resolving the transport funding deficit onto ratepayers would result in a rates increase of about 16% next year.

“I don’t intend to do that. Ratepayers have been shouldering the burden for too long. We must find new revenue streams to fund our much-needed housing and transport infrastructure rather than continuing to load the cost of growth on ratepayers.”

“The Auckland Transport Alignment Project was a good start in getting the city and Government working together. However it doesn’t go far enough in solving Auckland’s congestion and already faces a funding gap of $4 billion over 10 years. We need a solution now and can’t afford to wait another 4-6 years to deal with this problem.

“I’m committed to working with the Government to develop new transport funding measures. If they remain adamantly opposed to a regional fuel tax, they need to urgently come up with another workable and sustainable solution,” he said.

ENDS

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