concerns were raised about diesel supplies<\/a>.<\/p>\nSpeaking to Breakfast, Luxon brushed off suggestions the coalition had been avoiding the Beehive podium and theatrette for its fuel stock updates, with some claiming it was distancing itself from the imagery associated with the Covid-19 response.<\/p>\n
“Can I be really honest? We’re working 20 hours a day, seven days a week on this issue,” Luxon said. “That’s not been a deep consideration I’m aware of.”<\/p>\n
He said other countries had taken notice of New Zealand’s crisis response, with some adopting the fuel management framework.<\/p>\n
“There are other countries, to be honest, that I’ve been talking to their leaders, and they’re really struggling. Some have now following our four-phase model,” he said.<\/p>\n
Rising petrol and diesel prices have led to a rapid increase in public transport patronage.\u00a0 (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
National deferred previous increases<\/p>\n
The planned January 2027 increase to the fuel excise duty was itself a deferral. <\/p>\n
National had pledged on the campaign trail at the last election to not raise fuel taxes during its first term in office. In August 2023, the previous Labour government announced it wanted to hike petrol taxes by 12 cents per litre between 2024 and 2027.<\/p>\n
In opposition, the party’s transport spokesperson had been one of the loudest critics of that proposal, accusing Labour in a press release of “unleashing pain at the pump” during.<\/p>\n
“The Government shouldn\u2019t even be thinking about hiking petrol tax until the cost of living crisis has ended and inflation is back inside the Reserve Bank\u2019s 1-3% range.”<\/p>\n
Then-party spokesperson Simeon Brown promised National’s transport pledged transport projects would not require increases to petrol tax.<\/p>\n
The rise is proposed to take place over three years up until 2026. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
Once in government, Brown kept the promise for the current term but scheduled the same 12 cent increase for January 2027. The coalition’s first term ends in November 2026.<\/p>\n
Speaking in a speech to the AA last week, the current Transport Minister Chris Bishop said there were “consequences” to those decisions. <\/p>\n
“Petrol tax has not risen since 2020 and has not kept up with inflation,” he said.<\/p>\n
“In 2023, we campaigned on not increasing petrol tax in our first term. This was the right thing to do when there was a cost of living crisis, but we have to be honest about those consequences. It has deferred the issue until later.<\/p>\n
“Petrol tax is currently due to go up by 12c per litre in 2027, by six cents on January 1, 2028, and 4 cents in each year after that. I have to be honest with you, the idea that we would put up fuel tax during a fuel crisis seems like a non-starter to me.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m thinking hard about the funding challenge … and I\u2019ll have more to say soon.”<\/p>\n
The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including an Auckland fuel pipe\u2019s cut and left leaking, and the English football heavyweights coming here. (Source: Breakfast)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says a planned fuel tax increase for next January is now “possibly unlikely” as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354275,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[11508,2917,1667,42,43,135,40,38,41,39,112],"class_list":["post-354274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-christopher-luxon","tag-cost-of-living","tag-energy","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-transport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}