Solo mum Rosa Rutherford is forced to absorb another hike in petrol tax just two months after finding part-time work in Whangārei. Photo / Michael Cunningham
Solo mum Rosa Rutherford is forced to absorb another hike in petrol tax just two months after finding part-time work in Whangārei. Photo / Michael Cunningham
Bus services may be reintroduced in parts of rural Whangārei as another fuel tax hike prompts calls for better public transport services to lower travelling costs in Northland.
From yesterday, petrol excise duty rose 3 cents — from 63 cents per litre to 66 cents— increasing to 70 cents fromJuly next year.
Road user charges for diesel vehicles have gone up by about 5.5 per cent from yesterday and trucking companies in Northland are expected to be the worst affected.
Excluding GST, the road user charges for most light diesel vehicles will increase from $59.13 per 1000 kilometres to $62.61 or $72 if GST if added.
The government says an increase in excise duty on fuel is funding road safety improvements to save lives and much needed infrastructure to get cities and regions moving.
Rosa Rutherford started part-time work in Whangārei just two months ago and spends about $70 a week on her Toyota Corolla sedan to travel to and from her Mt Tiger home.
"I'd love to see more public transport and ride shares ... the community helping each other. That way, there'll be less impact on the environment," the solo mother said.
Rutherford said with rising rents and power bills in winter, the last thing struggling families needed was to fork out more for another essential.
Northland Regional Council's transport committee is tentatively "putting thought" into trialling bus services in Whangārei Heads, Hikurangi, and maybe Waipu.
Committee chairman John Bain said bus services were trialled in rural areas in Whangārei previously but were swiftly cancelled due to poor uptake.
"It only reasonably pays to run these services. We don't mind getting a subsidy from the NZ Transport Agency but if we don't get bums on seats, it's not going to reasonably support the efforts of others."
Bain said planning for another trial was "well down the track" and urged commuters to make use of bus services in their areas if the opportunity arose.
Social advocate Carol Peters said the ever-rising fuel prices meant the availability of more public transport in Northland was a "big deal" for rural folk.
She said buses should run between Whangārei and Dargaville and in areas like Mangakahia and even at Whangaruru.
"If we're taxing the poor people, we really need to look at alternative transport," she said.
Former Whangārei mayor Stan Semenoff owns the largest log haulage business in Northland and said taxes paid for by trucking companies and others were not invested in the areas they serviced.
Stan Semenoff believes revenue from road user charges in Northland should be ploughed back into crucial infrastructure in the region. Photo / Michael Cunningham
"The fuel price hike will have a big impact on us but we can't always pass those costs to our customers who also have difficulty passing them on to their customers.
"I wish the state of our roads gets better because they have deteriorated in the last five years and have gotten worse in the last two to three years despite the road user charges going up.
"One only has to see the amount of logs exported through NorthPort at Marsden, that's revenue for the government which should be going back to areas the tax revenue comes from but that doesn't happen," Semenoff said.
Road Transport Forum director Greg Pert said the latest increase in road user charges would not only increase costs of all trucking firms, including those in Northland, but consumers would end up paying more in the long run.
"When you think about all the goods that are transported by truck, including essentials such as food and the exports that keep our economy moving – goods to market being a big part of the Northland economy - each additional cost to transporting goods costs every New Zealander.
"If a company can't pass on costs to customers, then they have to look at reducing costs elsewhere, such as cutting staff. It's hard to see who the winners are from these increases," Pert said.
