And how we pay for them, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in today’s extract from The Bulletin.

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Petrol tax could be gone by 2027

When launching his government’s latest quarterly action plan back in July, Christopher Luxon named addressing the cost of living as a top priority – but said that to achieve that, “you gotta get modern infrastructure in place”. Nearly two months into that plan, we’re starting to see a number of those goals become reality. It’s been a busy week for the government. We’ve talked about some of what has been announced already – like the backdown on ministerial sign-off in the forthcoming fast-track consenting laws. But yesterday saw a flurry of stories around transport.

In a speech to the Building Nations conference in Auckland, transport minister Simeon Brown announced a new Revenue Action Plan, a roadmap teeing up a possible overhaul of transport funding that would see petrol car drivers pay road user charges in lieu of fuel tax, reported RNZ’s Craig McCulloch. According to the new action plan, which has been welcomed by transport advocates, legislation could be introduced next year that will see all light vehicles charged road user charges by 2027. The government has previously indicated a petrol tax hike for that same year, as Amelia Wade reported for Newshub in June, suggesting there are a few more details to be ironed out before anything starts to change.

It’s part of a broader user pays model

Petrol taxes and road user charges contribute to the National Land Transport Fund and aid with road construction and upkeep. But in his speech, reported BusinessDesk’s Oliver Lewis (paywalled), Brown questioned the sustainability of that fund and that model. “We have inherited a transport system in need of investment, without the appropriate funding tools to pay for it,” the minister said. That’s nothing new – Treasury made note of pressure on the transport fund to the former government before last year’s budget, reported Newsroom’s Emma Hatton at the time.

To address this, the government has already made clear that it sees a future with new sources of revenue, road tolling being central to this. Brown referred to motorists as “customers” in his speech yesterday, adding that customers “expect and demand the highest level of service”. In July, Brown said that all of the government’s new roads of national significance could be tolled and, just this week, indicated the new Penlink highway may potentially incur a user fee. Meanwhile, so-called “congestion charges” are also on the (quite distant) horizon in cities like Auckland and Wellington, though as Glenn McConnell at Stuff explained, it will require cooperation between local councils, the transport agency and cabinet.

Get ready to be pinged more for a parking ticket

Also yesterday, the government announced plans to push ahead with a long-touted update to parking fines. I reported on this for The Spinoff last year, with the Labour government confirming it had bumped a planned hike to parking fines as a result of the cost of living crisis. Parking fines haven’t been adjusted for over 20 years, meaning it can sometimes be cheaper to risk being ticketed and forego paying for parking at all – something Auckland’s mayor Wayne Brown told RNZ’s Lisa Owen made “no sense”.

The knotty issue here is that while councils can set the cost of parking, they don’t have control over how much the fines should be. That’s set by legislation, which is why the government is finally stepping in to bring parking infringements in line with inflation. It will mean an increase of about 70%, reported the Herald’s Jamie Ensor. One significant hike will be for drivers caught illegally parking in a disabled carpark. Currently, that would result in a $150 fine but this will soon be increased significantly up to $750 – it seems unlikely anyone will argue that’s unfair. Disability issues minister Louise Upston said that misusing disability carparks was the “epitome of arrogance” and the current penalty was far too low.

Are Auckland Transport’s days numbered?

Another wish of Wayne Brown’s may also be in the pipeline, though it will require some political manoeuvring to become a reality. As Oliver Lewis reported (paywalled), New Zealand First has put forward a member’s bill that would abolish Auckland Transport and have the organisation’s functions returned to the council. Being a member’s bill, this doesn’t instantly mean it has the government seal of approval – though Winston Peters is a fan – and it would have to be randomly drawn from the ballot to even be debated.

Nevertheless, Auckland’s mayor has already been vocally advocating for this, having publicly admonished the council-controlled organisation on several occasions – including yesterday, telling a crowd in Auckland that AT “simply has too much power”. Earlier this month, Brown told Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan he wanted to see AT stripped of its policymaking functions, while the appointment of the “pro-car” councillor Maurice Williamson to AT’s board is said to be part of the mayor’s plans to take some control of the organisation. Taking to Twitter, Brown called New Zealand First’s bill a “welcome development”.