AA opposes road funding change

Government officials considering new ways of paying for roads and public transport are urged by the Automobile Association to stick with petrol taxes as the fairest money-raiser.

New Minister of Transport David Parker has been warned by his officials that greater vehicle fuel efficiency threatens to erode the viability of petrol tax as the main funding source for transport infrastructure.

The warning, in a Ministry of Transport briefing paper, comes just weeks before Mr Parker is expected to receive a report on the possibility of levying direct charges on motorists to use some existing Auckland roads.

But Automobile Association spokesman Mike Noon said yesterday that taxing motorists through petrol sales was the fairest way of raising money to pay for roads, and the Government should simply stop siphoning much of that into its general account.

The Government defends its diversion of petrol taxes to the general account by saying it pays more than $1 billion a year in non-ACC costs of treating road crash victims and those suffering ill-health from vehicle pollution.

Mr Noon said ACC was collecting too much money from motorists and that 90 per cent of ill-health from vehicle emissions was from diesel rather than petrol fumes.

Diesel emissions were being improved by reduced sulphur levels after improvements to the Marsden Pt oil refinery, he said.

Although the AA supported tolling some new roads if that was what it took to overcome funding shortfalls to get them built, he said it should be tolerated only until debts were repaid.

There would be no justification for charging motorists for existing roads, as they had already paid for these through petrol taxes, and there should be no "double-dipping".

Secretary for Transport Robin Dunlop said his ministry had merely flagged a need over the next 10 years to look at ways of substituting existing revenue sources, rather than increasing overall charges.

He said New Zealand's petrol tax system provided a better match between users and the cost of their activities than countries such as Australia and the United States, which relied more on broader-brush motor registration fees.

Dr Dunlop would not be drawn on what conclusions his officials had reached after a year of studying the possibility of road-pricing in Auckland, except to say that whatever was decided would have to be fair and equitable.

Where it all goes

* $1.362 billion is the amount the Government expects to reap this year from petrol taxes.

* 55 per cent will go to the National Land Transport Fund, the rest to the general account.

* $792 million from owners of diesel vehicles as road user charges goes to the fund.