Petrol is set to soar in Auckland as the Council and Central Government desperately attempt to find a means to fund the growing infrastructure of our biggest city.
While I certainly agree investment needs to occur and we must get Aucklanders out of their cars, and this petrol tax is a good place to start, I am deeply against the impact on the poorest members of Auckland this petrol tax will truly damage.
Auckland Transport gutted evening bus services to South Auckland which hits shift workers and students meaning private transport is the ONLY solution for those people.
The poorest amongst us will be the worst impacted right when Auckland Transport is slashing services to the areas they predominantly live in.
It is not acceptable for Labour to go along with this and pretend that it won’t hurt their support base the most. Screw trams up an already clogged Dominion Road and light rail to the airport – what about mass subsidisation of public transport to the poorest regions to help with this giant cost jump?
Auckland Transport’s response just as the petrol tax goes up is more vicious scrutiny of people using public transport…
New powers to issue fines on public transport for fare dodgers
The game may be up for fare dodgers across the country when newly warranted officers start issuing fines for the first time.Legislation that comes into force next week will allow public transport authorities throughout the country to issue $150 fines to passengers who don’t carry tickets.
The Land Transport Amendment Act was passed into law in May and allows public transport authorities to fine fare dodgers through officers warranted by police.
…r-i-g-h-t.
So petrol prices soar, Auckland Transport gut services to South Auckland and they suddenly gain the powers to fine people $150 if they don’t have a ticket.
But don’t worry, middle class public transport pet projects will go ahead.
This isn’t acceptable, it’s a form of economic apartheid.
Yes the poor will be effected the most I feel for those people who don’t have fulltime work their low incomes will be further eroded on just getting to work. (transport costs) And the cost of good and services may also go up as transport companies will be paying more to deliver stuff. So its a vicious cycle really. The last government created the economic conditions for greater inequalities for example mass immigration of cheap labour, dumbed down workers rights so those with less money, capital, part time or casual work have to survive on less and less and those with more have increased their wealth substantially. Trickle down has trickled up. To make matters worse the last government cut public services at a time when they should have increased them to help those disadvantaged by their laissez faire polices. The national governments mess is showing now for all to see underfunding, cutting, selling, privatising the so called surplus came at a huge costs and we as a country are paying for there gross incompetence. They should never get back in.
Being disabled by Multiple Sclerosis – as I’ve been for too many years now (& when a nurse tutor I taught all about this dreadful disease), I manage to afford $10/week for petrol, & one can’t drive far on that! I don’t have another 15c/L for petrol (living in the Auckland city region). I can’t use public transport – it’s too inconvenient/exhausting for me. In my late 70s I’m still paying off a mortgage (another tale about a male who ripped me off to the tune of around $200,000 – & it happens to too many women – I’ve met some of them). With other unavoidable costs, I haven’t had money for years to e.g., see a film, go to a concert/play, have a latte in a cafe, & & &. ALL my clothes are ex-op shops.
At least I don’t live in a car, but have to “put up with” spouting that desperately needs to be replaced – rain pours through like a sieve with a hole in it, windows that all need to be re-puttied, dry rot that I can’t afford to do anything about & & &. I was suicidal when I bought my house & had no money to pay for a property check/cheque.
People like me must live with an attitude of gratitude because billions on this Earth are desperately worse off than I am.
MS is a dreadful thing most people wouldn’t have a clue about. But that’s free market thinking. The fact that public transport is unable to cope with this most basic function does not translate well into New Zealand’s Defence Force Taskings. A bit of a wired comparison I know but taking care of vulnerable people on a strategic level can not be done with out its local equivalent. You may not be aware that I plug NZDF a lot because if the understanding of the resources and functions isn’t understood on a local level it’s next to impossible scaling that up to strategic impossitions.
Good luck to you Isabel and thanks for sharing your story.
Labor and another regressive tax, anyone else seeing a pattern with these corporate liberals.
Chloe’s got an electoral funding bill in submission phase. Now before you make another comment I want you to make a submission.
All you need to know is contained in this Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/nzparliament/status/1012138239933612032?s=21
Now go. And don’t come back until you are finished.
Chloe has an electoral bill in submission phase. Before you make any further comment I want you to make a submission.
All you need to know is contained in this Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/nzparliament/status/1012138239933612032?s=21
Now go, no more comments until you’ve finished.
Ps, if there’s a double up. Sorry not sorry
A few examples I’ve explored over the last few days… it seems that a petrol tax is more like a punishment on the poor and middle class than to ease congestion as the public transport clearly is not exactly affordable or even available or feasible due to the time, cost and availability it is taking to get anywhere.
As soon as you need to change from Queen ST, Auckland aka get to the airport, you are facing massive time and costs.
Bare in mind most people would have to have a car as well, if they had a family because imagine paying these public transport costs for an entire family getting around without a car!
Hobsonville Point Road, Hobsonville to Queen Street, Auckland Central
Thursday 28 June
Departs at 7:38 am
1hr 4min
HOBS HOP $7.50 weekly return journey $75 + $10 HOP
Yep 2 hours+ commute and $75 for transport.
Or take the picturesque ferry from Hobsonville PT
A lovely 44 minute walk return to get to the ferry (no public transport options according to AT planner) and then that 35 minute journey by ferry, so I guess that is 44 minute walk and total transit time of around 2 hours but costs you $100 per week in ferry costs…
Next target for ‘affordable homes’ built by HCL currently looks like $800K + though and then getting into the city centre..
14 Taniwha Street, Wai O Taiki Bay to Queen Street, Auckland Central
Departs at 7:50 am
53min
757 HOP $3.30 return weekly journey is $33 plus $10 HOP and nearly a 2 hour commute each day.
Ngataringa Road, Devonport to Auckland Airport, Auckland Airport
Departs at 6:36 am
1hr 48min
802X SKY HOP $21.30
HOP $21.30 return weekly is a whooping $223 + $10 HOP but you can’t get there before 9am and you walk nearly 40 minutes of it.
Helensville, Helensville to Queen Street, Auckland Central
Friday 29 June
Departs at 7:02 am
1hr 45min
125X HOP $7.50 Weekly $75 +$10 HOP
Transit time return a day is 3 hours and 30 minutes (they do have an unused train line that could immediately service the area but nope they are building a new one instead of utilising existing services).
Unitec Auckland, Mount Albert to Queen Street, Auckland Central
Friday 29 June
Departs at 8:10 am
45min
195 HOP $3.30 Weekly $33 + $10 HOP
Takes 1.5 hours return per day
Kaukapakapa to Queen ST
No public transport available.
Karaka Road, Karaka
No public transport available.
The questions is that 3rd world countries seem to have better transport and it’s cheaper than us, why? Punishing people with more taxes isn’t going to solve the problem and adding more houses and people is going to make the congestion worse!
It is a tax, not a solution for commuters!
Meanwhile we have overseas billionaires bringing in slave workers for luxury hotels for tourists and illegal workers actually run away when labour inspectors come on construction sites!
Some of the times taking to get around short distances on public transport are appalling, it really is torture to use it!
We need to ask, why is it taking Auckland Transport 53 minutes to go from PT Chev where our PM lives, to Queen ST, when it takes approx 12 minutes to drive it?
330 Point Chevalier Rd, Point Chevalier, Auckland, 1022, NZL – Queen St
Driving Distance: 8.53 km , Duration: 12 minutes
On public transport according to AT
330 Point Chevalier Road, Point Chevalier to Queen Street, Auckland Central
Departs at 8:02 am
53min
195 HOP $3.30
Like Isabel J I have MS and can’t take public transport. First, too hard with my zimmer frame and second, no longer any bus where I live!
I hate the new tax which will affect the poor more yet Phil Twyford was smugly proud of himself when he announced it. Good on you contributors for spelling out the problems. How will we oppose it?
Visited Moscow in the eighties. An all day bus/train pass to travel multiple trips anywhere in the city cost 5 kopeks. Brilliant.
Thats the sort of thinking required to get real public transport working in Auckland. A $5 all day anywhere pass would work a treat.
Just try it for a year and see … what happens!
If you wanna live in the big city with all the work options and services that the regions can only dream about it’s gonna cost ya. No diff from regional city’s just more and bigger. Lots of NZ live in little shithole towns and work crap little jobs, their choice to do so, same with Auckland. Stop ya whinging Auckland.
hey look at the bigger picture – our driving is shocking. Accelerate away – slam on the breaks for the lights. Uses loads of fuel. Drive smoothly and safely and save 20% of your fuel! yes it’s that easy plus reduces carbon impacts and toxic pollution health impacts YAY triple win anyone
But everyone else in the country still pays considerably more, try Christchurch prices.
It never ceases to amaze me how little original, creative thought goes into the solution of our most pressing social problems. We persist in trying to solve every problem we have with a hammer, because that’s the only tool bequeathed to us by our political ancestors.
The solutions are just laying there, hiding in the open in plain sight.
We allow banks to magic up money out of nothing, with the stroke of a pen, to pay for boats and cars, vacations, and to buy and flip houses without adding any value whatsoever. But suggest that the government could issue its own money to build national strategic assets of obvious value to the people of NZ, and you get called a crank.
There is no need to raise taxes to fund development. The necessity for that ended when Nixon took the US off the Gold Standard. Money is backed by nothing now, except perhaps the threat of violence. Since 1973, every new dollar that has gone into circulation has entered the money supply as new debt, created out of thin air by a private bank.
Rationally, there is absolutely no need for banks. If a private bank can create money, certainly a nation-state can. When you create national strategic assets, you create wealth, actual social wealth. The money issued to create it, if it matches the value to the economy of the asset, allowing for depreciation, is inflation neutral. As the wealth of the society increases, so too does the money supply, in lock step.
The only problem with this is that you disintermediate the Capitalists who have historically always insinuated themselves into every conceivable social transaction. Yet they are entirely superfluous. We could decide to be free of them tomorrow. Except if we did, we would find ourselves the subject to an all-out, no holds barred economic war, as happened and is still happening to Greece, Venezuela and Russia.
So the reality is, we are prisoners, slave labour really, to the global financial system. Until we decide to break free.
We have digital currencies now. We could do it. It is not actually difficult. Yet somehow I suspect we will persist in afflicting ourselves and our people to pay the ransom demanded by these globalists thugs for many years to come.
To finance the strategic assets we need, we don’t need taxes, we don’t need loans, we just need to embrace the exciting potential of this new technology and the radical opportunities it represents. Oh, and we will need to grow a set of balls and brains, sufficient to the task of creating a new financial system.
Can we do it? Yes. Will we do it? Almost certainly not.
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