{"id":428143,"date":"2026-05-15T00:25:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T00:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/428143\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T00:25:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T00:25:10","slug":"fuel-tax-protest-nz-plans-40-plus-rallies-as-government-rejects-tax-cuts-police-to-monitor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/428143\/","title":{"rendered":"Fuel Tax Protest NZ plans 40-plus rallies as Government rejects tax cuts, police to monitor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Police said they were aware of planned protests across the country and, while recognising the right to protest, their focus would be on safety and minimising disruption.<\/p>\n

\"FuelFuel Tax Protest organisers are demanding the removal of the Emissions Trading Scheme levy from petrol and diesel. Photo \/ Annaleise Shortland<\/p>\n

Barrett described the campaign as \u201corganic\u201d, with a network of regional organisers taking responsibility for how events were run in their communities.<\/p>\n

The collective is demanding road-user charges to be halted and greater transparency over how fuel-related revenue is spent, alongside interim relief for essential sectors.<\/p>\n

Transport Minister Chris Bishop said he had not been aware of the protest, but that it appeared to be based on \u201csome false assumptions\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said the fuel tax had not changed \u201csince the crisis began\u201d, saying it remained at a flat rate of about 70c per litre of petrol rather than a percentage of fuel prices.<\/p>\n

The Government had already indicated a planned increase scheduled for January 1, 2027, was \u201cunlikely to go ahead\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bishop also ruled out changes to road-user charges, saying they help fund road maintenance alongside fuel taxes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Government is not in a position to reduce fuel taxes in a way contemplated by the protesters,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be untargeted and expensive and come at the expense of other Government priorities like improving maintenance of our roads.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TransportTransport Minister Chris Bishop says the Government is not contemplating changes to road-user charges. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n

Barrett confirmed he had travelled to Wellington for the 2022 Parliament occupation, which ended in clashes with police.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a real problem with people getting forced to get vaccinated or lose their job or lose their liberty,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt turned really nasty in the last few hours and I didn\u2019t agree with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said lessons had been taken from that experience, and organisers were focused on ensuring this weekend\u2019s protests remained peaceful.<\/p>\n

\"FuelFuel Tax Protest NZ organiser Phil Barrett says he did not agree with the violence that marred the end of the Covid-19 protest at Parliament in 2022. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n

Barrett said the group was prepared to continue protesting beyond May 16, warning it may not remain \u201cas friendly and as sensible\u201d if concerns were not addressed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police said they were aware of planned protests across the country and, while recognising the right to protest,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6450,219447,806,10666,67072,2678,266,219448,61386,23158,111,43,139,69,6269,48717,76331,5202,42900,2171,675,25394,17524,22049,312,7496,61,11744,1533],"class_list":["post-428143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-6450","tag-40plus","tag-as","tag-cuts","tag-demonstrations","tag-fuel","tag-government","tag-lawful","tag-monitor","tag-nationwide","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-occupation","tag-organiser","tag-parliamentary","tag-part","tag-peaceful","tag-plans","tag-police","tag-protest","tag-rallies","tag-rejects","tag-says","tag-tax","tag-to","tag-upcoming","tag-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428143","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=428143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}