Chris Bishop: Transport Minister explains why the Government's looking to axe fuel taxes

The Transport Minister says the petrol tax needs replacing - to keep up revenue for maintaining roads.

Chris Bishop's announced universal road user charges will be implemented for all vehicles, to be paid like a bill.

The Government wants payments to reflect road-use, not a vehicle's fuel-efficiency.

Bishop says with 350,000 hybrids on the road, fewer people are paying fuel taxes.

He explained the national land transport fund's revenue is slowly diminishing - which is needed to maintain existing roads and build new ones.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Afternoon, the government will scrap petrol taxes and replace them
instead with road user charges for everyone. The petrol tax
is about seventy cents per liter at the pump. Diesel,
electric and heavy vehicles already pay charges based on the
distances that they travel. Chris Bishop is the Transport minister.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Haybish gooda, so how is this going to work.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
We're all going to have to count our cas and
then file some paperwork.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
No, what you'll have to do is essentially run an
electronic system.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
We already have this for trucks.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
For example, they use electronic ruck now, so they just
the truck has a little transponder which is linked into
a payment system and the trucks pay electronically depending on
how much they use and obviously based on the weight
of the trucks.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
That it'll be like that for everybody else as well.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
And my anticipation is that people will have it linked
into an app or some sort of electronic system and
you know, you'll pay weekly or potentially a monthly.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
You just get a bill and you'll pay, and.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
You won't have to pay when you pay at the
petrol pump because petrol tax won't exist anymore. Everyone no
matter what the propulsion type, will be paying road user charges.
What happens if you don't pay, well, on the same
same way that it happens now, you're breaking the law
and you have to Will it actually be a lot
easier to enforce them in the new system than what
we have at the moment because the ruck system is

(01:16):
paper based at the moment, and you know you've got
to you know, you've got to go online, you've got
to buy it one thousand kilometer chunks. Heaps of people
don't do that, and you know you've got to or
you've got to display it, you know, a paper form
on the top of your dashboard. So it'll all be electronic,
linked into a system, and it'll be against the law
to not do it.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Yeah, But like if you get your if you get
your power bill and you don't pay it, your power
goes off. So what happens if you don't pay this bill,
car doesn't stop.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Well, there'll be there will be there will.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
Be penalties obviously, which which will well enforce and you know,
all of that will be worked out as we pass
the legislation, and you know, I've got two to three
years as we do that. But it will be against
the law and there will be a range of penalties,
and we'll be talking to the police about how to
enforce that in the same way they enforce everything else
on the roads as well, include including WAFT for example,
and the current road user system as well.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Will it cost the same as it does now? So
for example, whatever I'm paying in petrol tax, will I
be charged Should I be expecting to pay about the
same in rucks?

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yes, that's the intention.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
The intention is not to The intention is to protect
the revenue base of the National Land Transport Fund at
the moment, right, So if we don't make this change,
what's happening at the moment with the rise of fuel
efficient vehicles. You know, ten years ago there was about
twelve thousand of them on the road of hybrids. Now
we've got about three hundred and fifty thousand hybrids on

(02:35):
the roads, and the revenue base for the National Land
Transport Fund, which pays for the new roads and pays
for the maintenance of the existing roads, that is gradually
diminishing because of the rise of fuel efficient vehicles, so
in electric vehicles and things like that. So if we
don't make this change, we will over time erode the
way in which we pay for our roads, and my

(02:57):
simple messages, we have to keep investing in our roading net.
You know, dis Goverment's put a record amount into pothole
prevention and maintenance, for example, and a huge program of
roads of national significance. We want to build out around
the country and we need to continue to pay for
our roads. But if we don't make this change, that
the ability to do that will be hindered. And you know,

(03:19):
we simply had you know, someone is going to have
to make this change. We're just recognizing reality and we're
getting on with it, and we're doing it in a
careful and deliberate way. We're not we're not rushing it.
You know, we're not saying tomorrow you're going to start
paying electronic road user charges. We're doing it in a
careful way. Well, we'll pass legislation next year. By twenty
twenty seven, there'll be a range of providers that will

(03:41):
provide electronic ruck for people, and at some point after
that we will do the big switcher Rooney, We'll do
the big changeover and everyone will be required to use that.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
Okay, now I'm getting a lot of texts from people
saying things like, I know people with the five hundred
bucks scanner to turn back the odometer. Can people get
around your system like that?

Speaker 2 (04:00):
No, they won't be able to. I mean there's a
couple of things.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
One one is that cars that are entering the fleet
now actually have built into the car the technology to
link in to electronic road user charges. So other countries
have this now, right, So cars that are entering the
fleet already have that modern cars. The second is that
you can get little transponders that you know, you can
put in your in your car or on your dashboard
that link into how much you're traveling and that can

(04:25):
link into the payment system as well. So there's there's
a range of different scenarios that we'll work through as
part of designing the system. But it won't be as
simple as just windering your adometer back.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
That won't be possible, all right, Besh, Thanks very much,
Chris Bishop, Transport Minister.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
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Speaker 1 (04:42):
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