Kerre Woodham: Who should pay for roads?

Now, last year, National promised that, should it become the government, it would among other things scrap the Auckland Regional Fuel Tax, and yesterday they did just that.   

Since the 1st of July 2018, Aucklanders have paid an additional 11.5 cents per litre tax on fuel, over and above what the rest of the country pays. Of course, the rest of the country may well feel the effects of that when it comes to the cost of petrol that will be passed on by freight carriers and the like.  

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown didn't like it when National made the promise then, and he certainly doesn't like it now. Simeon Brown though says Labour said that Auckland needed the fuel tax to deliver light rail. That was back in 2017. They haven't delivered on their major infrastructure projects, while Aucklanders continue to pay more at the pump. That's according to Simon Simeon Brown, the Transport Minister.   

Mayor Brown says, well, hang on a minute. Yes light rail is a complete and utter fiasco (he didn't say that - I did), but the revenue from the Regional Fuel Tax, half of which is sitting in the bank, is committed to a $1.4 billion Auckland Infrastructure project, the Eastern Busway, which will carry 30,000 people a day between Auckland's South East and Panmure station. So that money is going to be used even though it's sitting in the bank. It is earmarked for a project. There are going to be buses and cycleways and without that money those projects look to be in doubt.  

Northern Infrastructure Forum coordinator Barney Irvine told the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning, the Auckland regional fuel tax may be gone, but there are other ways to fund roading projects. 

 

IRVINE: “Transport projects often generate a whole lot of increase in property value and the and the surrounding areas.” 

HOSKING: “You want to go down that track, do you?  See I don't know about that. Because I live near a bus stop, you’re going to tax me?”  

IRVINE: “Oh, look, there's more to it than that, but the issue is that, yeah, there is a lot of value to be generated there, that gets generated there, whether it's the process of moving from farmland to suddenly land that that's designated for higher use, massive increase in property value and we’re just not tapping into it.” 

 

So, a novel way of introducing a tax.  

So all of those people who are now living around the Northern motorway extension —recently opened to great fanfare, and everybody enjoys driving on it; I love driving on it when I'm heading north— all of those people who live around there should suddenly pay more in rates because they've got a better roadway right next to them.  

All the people on the poor, benighted Meola Road project who are suffering now, all those people living in Point Chev who are suffering now, should pay more in rates because all of a sudden a busways opened up, and cycle ways have opened up, and it becomes a more attractive and desirable area to live, because there are many accessible ways to transport yourself from point A to point B.  

That was just one of the options mentioned by Barney, but interestingly, an Infrastructure Commission survey conducted recently looked at different ways of funding infrastructure and asked the respondents what they thought was fair. No means of paying for roads was considered fair by the majority of respondents. So, they thought it was fair enough that user pays when it comes to electricity, user pays when it comes to water, but the majority said there was no fair way to pay for roads. I always thought user pays was about the fairest way you could get. When you've got