Don Brash MP
National Party Leader

1 April 2005

Tax from roads to be spent on roads

National Party Leader Don Brash today announced that a National Government will spend all tax collected from the roads on improving the roads.

He told the Automobile Association's annual conference in Napier that low investment in roading is damaging productivity, and unsafe roads are killing too many people.

“New Zealanders deserve better and safer roads and National will see that this happens.

“There is too much carnage on our roads and too many people are sitting for too long in traffic jams. That is why National will ensure that all the tax collected from the roads will be spent on the roads.

“Over the course of our first two terms in office, we will move all the petrol tax that goes into the consolidated fund to the National Land Transport Fund to be spent on roads.

“We will increase the funds available for roading above what is currently planned by $100 million in the first year, and thereafter by a further $100 million per year, so that by the end of our second term all of the roughly $600 million that is currently collected in petrol tax but used for purposes other than roading is spent on developing and maintaining our road network.

“Over six years, this means an additional $2.l billion will be added to the sum currently placed in the Land Transport Fund; an additional $4 billion over nine years. We estimate that this would nearly double the amount actually available for the construction of new roads over the nine years.

“New Zealanders are sick and tired of unsafe and congested roads. Under Labour, traffic jams will get longer and slower. National says that is simply not acceptable.”

Dr Brash said the extra funding, together with the removal of the unnecessarily restrictive provisions in legislation such as the Resource Management Act, will enable the bulldozers to start immediately on urgently needed major roading projects.

ENDS

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