Auckland’s regional fuel tax has received majority support from the city’s residents in the latest Colmar Brunton poll.
The poll of just under 4000 people showed that 52 per cent of people supported the tax with 43 per cent opposed.
The Government wants to pump more money into road safety and public transport with the fuel tax. (Source: Other)
Mayor Phil Goff admitted in a release that he was surprised by the result.
“The poll shows a surprisingly strong level of support for the RFT when polls of this sort normally show opposition to paying more for any service,” Mr Goff said.
“It clearly reflects an understanding by Aucklanders that we need ourselves to invest more in our transport network to deal with a rapidly increasing population and level of traffic on our roads."
Goff said that the benefits of the tax would be two-fold, easing congestion in Auckland and raising funds to improve the city’s transport system.
“Without this investment we will not stop congestion getting much worse to the point of our city becoming gridlocked.”
The PM says the benefits would be "beyond the cities"and double the amount that go to regional roads. (Source: Other)
The tax would raise an estimated $150 million per year or $1.5 billion over a 10 year period.
“As this expenditure enables the progressing of projects which in turn attract development contributions, the additional funds raised from Auckland are likely to be over $200 million a year.
“This in turn attracts in most instances a one-for-one subsidy from the National Land Transport Fund which will result in additional infrastructure spending of more than $4 billion over the decade.
“This is a major sum of money which is critically important to progressing a better transport system for Auckland. To raise the equivalent sum through rates would result in a total rate increase of around 13 per cent this year. Alternatively, to do nothing would see Auckland gridlocked in a short period of time.”
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