The government heralded its plan to move New Zealand’s entire vehicle fleet to road-user charges as a fairer method of funding road maintenance.
For owners of electric and diesel vehicles, this is nothing new. They already pay road-user charges based on the distance travelled.
But for petrol vehicles, it is a shift away from fuel excise duty, or petrol tax, which is currently about 77 cents per litre of fuel. As it is linked to the price of petrol, more fuel-efficient petrol vehicles pay relatively less than gas guzzlers for every kilometre travelled.
Much of the policy detail…
