Petrol taxes fuel war of words over roads
While National attacks the government for hiking fuel taxes, a plan for better busways is attracting praise from an unlikely quarter: Auckland mayor Wayne Brown.
Mōrena and welcome to The Bulletin for Friday, August 18, by Catherine McGregor. Presented in partnership with Z Energy.
In today’s edition: Andrew Little orders investigation into work visa scheme after abuse revelations; Tauranga is getting a fancy new city centre; Bernard Hickey learns how ‘open banking’ could help nudge businesses towards decarbonisation. But first, Labour’s land transport plan promises more roads, more buses – and more fuel taxes.
Government promises ‘minor’ but ‘necessary’ fuel tax rises
For years, regular fuel tax increases were an unfortunate fact of life. Then came Covid, and a fuel tax freeze, and then afterwards a government subsidy introduced to help address spiralling cost of living increases. But for drivers, those halcyon days are now over. As petrol prices continue to rise thanks to the end of the fuel tax subsidy on June 30, the government says it plans to increase taxes by 12 cents a litre by mid-2027. The first fuel tax rise, 2 cents, would take place midway through next year. Transport minister David Parker says the hikes are “minor” but “necessary”, with prime minister Chris Hipkins adding that they’ll cost most families no more than $1 a week.
We need to pay for better roads somehow, says PM
The increases are all in service of the government’s new land transport plan, which includes 14 projects it wants Waka Kotahi to prioritise. As previewed in yesterday’s Bulletin, a number of them currently fall under the Let’s Get Wellington Moving umbrella – such as “upgrades to the Basin Reserve and Arras Tunnel, a second Mt Victoria tunnel and mass rapid transit from the CBD to Island Bay”, reports Newsroom’s Emma Hatton – while the Herald’s Thomas Coughlan lists improvements to SH1 from Cambridge to Piarere, the Christchurch Northern link, Napier to Hastings along SH2, the Hope Bypass on SH6 and Tauranga to Tauriko on SH29 as other projects in the government’s sights. “You have to fund the roads somehow,” said Hipkins yesterday. “Other parties are saying you can have all of these new transport projects and not have to pay for them.” That’s a reference to the $24 billion transport plan that National launched without apparently adjusting for inflation, leaving a $2.5b hole in its budget, according to Marc Daalder of Newsroom.
Bouquets from Brown, brickbats from everyone else
Act and National are critical of Labour’s plan to raise fuel taxes in July 2024 (National says it wouldn’t do the same until inflation is back below 3% – which, as Labour has pointed out, may well happen around the same time anyway); the Greens are unhappy with the focus on roads. But the announcement has at least one fan: Auckland mayor Wayne Brown. He’s delighted that the government plans to do more work on developing Auckland's Northwestern Busway, a project that, when complete, promises a bus every seven to eight minutes from Westgate to the city centre during peak hours. Brown is glad the government is “finally listening” to the council on what’s best for Auckland, and says it’s obvious the busway should take precedence over “mega dream projects” like the additional harbour crossing. "You only need to look at the success of the Northern Busway,” he said, referring to the busway linking the North Shore with downtown. “If something works well like that, do it more. We don’t need to reinvent things with new pipe dreams.”
Relief for bus riders, more pain for long-suffering ferry users
There was yet more news for public transport users yesterday, both good and very, very bad. For many Auckland ferry passengers, the outlook is exceedingly grim. Fullers360 is pulling out of operating the Birkenhead, Te Onewa Northcote Point and Bayswater routes from October 1, and will reduce services on the Gulf Harbour and Half Moon Bay routes for the next 14 to 18 months while an “accelerated ferry crew training programme” gets underway, RNZ reports. Auckland Transport admits it’s “scrambling” to come up with alternative services, but says a chronic lack of ferry staff made the cuts inevitable. Now for the good news: the bus driver shortage appears to be over. “The buses are fixed” proclaims Greater Auckland blogger Matt Lowrie, who has a heap of data showing that Auckland services are improving in leaps and bounds. Meanwhile Wellington, which has suffered through a blizzard of bus cancellations over the past few years, should be back to a full timetable by the end of 2023.
The future is digital – but how do we ensure it's sustainable too?
Clean tech is coming – a wave of digital sustainability innovation will sweep through in the next 20 years, but as innovative as we think ourselves to be, New Zealand is lagging on the uptake and creation of digital sustainability tools, says the University of Auckland Business School's Ilan Oshri.Read more about Oshri's work, and how to ensure we're using our digital tools for good, on The Spinoff now. (sponsored)
Work visa scam prompts review of controversial scheme
Immigration minister Andrew Little has ordered a review of the Accredited Employer Work Visa scheme after around 40 immigrant workers were found to be living in a single three-bedroom house. As Newshub reported on Monday, the men called police on Sunday after their food ran out and they were forced to turn to begging. In the days since, MBIE says it has found a total of 115 Bangladeshi and Indian nationals living in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions in six houses across Auckland, all apparent victims of AEWV scams. The AEWV ties an immigrant’s right to work in New Zealand to a single accredited employer, which critics say raises opportunities for exploitation and abuse. When the scheme began, Immigration NZ (INZ) set an annual target of conducting checks on about 15% of all accredited employers. However, these checks only began in April this year, reports Mahesh Kumar of the Indian Weekender. “As of mid-June, the INZ had completed post-accreditation checks for a mere 257 out of over 23,000 accredited employers.” As of August 9, five employers have had their accreditation suspended, and six others have had their accreditation revoked, RNZ reports.
Get ready for a new and improved Tauranga city centre
Tauranga is splashing out $400m on a dramatic revitalisation of its city centre, writes RNZ’s Libby Kirkby-McLeod. In place of the current "dirty, decrepit, and deserted” CBD will be a real centre for the city, says Anne Tolley, the Tauranga City Council Commission chair and the city’s current leader. The project’s centrepiece will be Te Manawataki o Te Papa, “the heartbeat of Te Papa”, which “will take up a city block and include a new library, community hub, civic whare and museum, all facing an inviting green space”, reports Kirkby-McLeod. Work on the art gallery is scheduled to begin late next month, with the library and community hub following early next year. “Redevelopment of the waterfront, which will complement the new civic precinct and extend the city centre to the water's edge, [is] also underway.”
An artist's impression of the Te Manawataki o Te Papa site. (Photo: Tauranga City Council / Supplied)
The team behind everyone’s favourite election voting tool needs your help
We’re two months from election day which means it’s nearly time for the return of everyone’s favourite election voting tool, Policy. But the team needs your help to make it happen. Since 2017, tens of thousands of Spinoff readers have used the Policy tool to compare candidates and parties each election. In the current climate, Policy is as vital as ever, and it needs a little help to get to the finish line. If you’ve used the tool in the past or plan on using it in the coming weeks, please consider donating here to keep it running.
The company transitioning businesses to a low carbon economy
In this week’s episode of When the Facts Change, Bernard Hickey talks with CoGo founder Ben Gleisner about the potential to use bank data on spending to help businesses and consumers monitor and tweak their climate emissions. Gleisner talks about Aotearoa’s rocky and long pathway to open banking and the options for a type of ‘nudge’ economy towards decarbonisation.
Click and Collect
They may be officially earthquake-prone, but Wellington’s Opera House and Michael Fowler Centre are still safe to use, says council (The Post, paywalled)
National leader Christopher Luxon says NZ First’s anti-transgender policy is “on another planet” from the pressing concerns of most people.
Luxon has also responded to his potential coalition partner’s fantasy about bombing the Pacific ministry.
Legendary talkshow host Michael Parkinson has died aged 88.
Join The Spinoff Members! Become a member to support what we do and help us do more. Every contribution exclusively funds our journalism and helps keep it freely available to all. Join today! Already a member? Ka nui te mihi, your support means the world to us.
Stewart Sowman-Lund ranks and reviews decades of election slogans from our two major parties. Michael Donaldson asks whether the fall of Epic Brewing heralds the beginning of the end of craft beer in Aotearoa. Hera Lindsay Bird advises a reader troubled by their friend's relationship with a scammer. Tommy de Silva bikes to school with the kids and parents who want routes to be safer for tamariki around the country. Tara Ward tunes in to watch two be-kilted stars of Outlander take a tour round New Zealand.
Sporting snippets
Wallabies assistant coach Brad Davis has quit after clashing with head coach Eddie Jones
The Black Caps have beaten the UAE in the Twenty20 series-opener – but not by much.
It’s Friday, so…
If you haven’t been following the saga of Eurodance parody track ‘Planet of the Bass’, here’s the tl:dr. The creation of comedian Kyle Gordon, performing in-character as “DJ Crazy Times”, the song started its online life as a 50 second video snippet, complete with instantly iconic lines like “women are my favourite guy” and a spectacularly charismatic performance by a vocalist credited only as Biljana Electronica. Then something awful happened: Gordon began releasing new, much worse versions of the video, featuring a roster of forgettable TikTok influencers. As quickly as it had fallen in love with the song, Twitter turned against it.
But then, this week, all was forgiven when the full length video – again featuring the one, the only Biljana Electronica – was finally released. And it’s fantastic. Life, it never die!
Got some feedback about The Bulletin, or anything in the news? Get in touch with me at thebulletin@thespinoff.co.nz.
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