Regional fuel tax a possibility for city

Hamilton City Council wants to jump on board with Auckland with a proposed regional fuel tax. Photo / Duncan Brown.

An 11.5-cent-a-litre fuel tax could be in the mix for Hamilton after councillors voted to if Hamilton City could be included in the new local fuel tax scheme.

Petrol pumps throughout Hamilton could take up to $10m a year from motorists for Hamilton City Council transport projects under the proposed tax, while also taking Mayor Andrew King's proposed 15.5 per cent rates rise to 9 per cent.

The council has made a quick move to get in on the scheme after hearing areas outside of Auckland could be eligible.

Council will aim to start the tax at the same time the super city fuel tax takes place, which should be July 1 2018 according to central Government.

Councillor Rob Pascoe said that council had been caught napping and was late to the party for implementing a regional fuel tax.

"We urgently need to look at other forms of seeking revenue," Mr Pascoe said.

"I think this local fuel tax is the way to go. If you look around the world you will see the States are moving away from dependency on progressive income taxes and moving towards user pays taxes."

"It's a much fairer tax and an easier mean of collection."

Mr Pascoe said the council should not stop there and look at other means of collecting money through other means such as GST.

Councillor Paula Southgate supported the tax but was surprised at how it was dropped on councillors overnight.

"It is going to come straight into public consultation before we have had the debate first," Ms Southgate said. "I would had been happier if we as councillors could have had all that information back and look at it and understand where it is going to be spent and why before it went out to public consultation."

She said the Mayor and the CEO should lobby central government in the future for transportation.

"Let's have a conversation about how the government can put more funding into alternative modes of transport as well, because that will take pressure of the ratepayers."

Councillor Dave Macpherson said the opportunity had been presented to them and Hamilton would be crazy to not jump at it.

"We would be irresponsible to not support this and to not go down this track," Mr Macpherson said. "Yes we have been a little bit late but we believe it was only an Auckland proposal and politicians have only just said that it could be available to others."

The council voted unanimously to include the Regional Fuel Tax in the 10 year plan while also working with Central Government to be included as part of the regional fuel tax discussions.