Responding to the Transport Minister's suggestion of congestion charging in Wellington, New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says: 

“Minister Wood says that congestion charging is not meant to ‘primarily’ be a revenue raising tool. He needs to be more emphatic: any congestion charge must not raise a lick of extra revenue from commuters. In other words, any income from congestion charges should be offset with reductions in fuel tax or road user charges.”

“Countries like Singapore have shown how congestion charges are a useful tool to manage demand for limited road space. It gives drivers a financial incentive to take low-priority trips outside of rush hour.”

“But if there’s even a hint that this policy will be used to extract more money from commuters, the idea will become politically toxic. In fact, using congestion charges as a revenue source will doom the effectiveness of the policy as a traffic management tool, because the system will become distorted as politicians mess around with pricing to maximise revenue.”

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