NZTA borrowing discussed further

A lot of discussion in parliament yesterday around the news that NZTA will be able to borrow money to a greater extent than it has been able to previously. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFl2mqCDc_M] [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJMfYwXIk3Y] [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLEQgszao-Y] It seems that Brownlee is playing down the impact of the proposed change – saying that it’s not much change from the status quo and perhaps even that the change is only related to changing the mechanism for funding toll roads.…
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Should NZTA be allowed to borrow for the RoNS?

A media release by the Green Party today noted that upcoming changes to the Land Transport Management Act (the bill was tabled in parliament today by the sound of it) will allow NZTA to borrow much more money than they have previously been able to: Having repeatedly insisted that there is no transport budget crisis, Gerry Brownlee is now seeking the power to borrow to build uneconomic motorways, Green Party transport spokesperson Julie Anne Genter said today.…
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The future of fuel taxes

Earlier this week the “fuel excise duty” (FED) increased by 2 cents per litre. As the Herald noted, taxes of one form or another now make up nearly $1 pre litre from what you pay at the pump: * Fuel excise – 50.524c * GST – 27.77c * ACC levy – 9.9c * Local authorities fuel tax – 0.66c * Petroleum monitoring levy – 0.045c * Total tax – 88.899c.…
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The government’s bizarre response to the Auckland Plan

Central government has put together an official response to the Council’s Auckland Plan. While in many areas there’s support and agreement, one obvious place where the two views don’t match up is in relation to transport. Discussion around the government’s position on the Council’s transport plans for the next 30 years is quite extensive, but a little bit hard to comprehend.…
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Being Rational About Transport Spending

New Zealand spends a lot of money on transport. More than half our rates are spent on building and fixing roads and footpaths as well as funding buses, trains and ferries. Further to this, close to a third of what we pay at the petrol pump is tax, with the bulk of that money – around $3 billion a year – also being spent on transport, an ever increasing proportion going to State Highways.…
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Petrol tax to increase

As expected, today the government announced that petrol taxes and road user charges will increase (by 2c a litre and 4.1% respectively), as of August 1st. Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee has today confirmed increases in petrol excise duty of two cents a litre and an equivalent increase in road user charges of an average of 4.1 per cent.…
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The Upcoming NLTP: trying and failing to put lipstick on a pig

There will be a lot of discussion over the coming weeks and months about transport funding – how much is going to be spent on what types of transport projects over the next three years. This is because NZTA’s “National Land Transport Programme” (NLTP) is in the final phases of being put together, and it is the NLTP which guides how NZTA spends your petrol tax and road user charges over the next three years.…
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