National’s
Nicola Willis says the government has not given any
consideration to putting a
$9 toll on both the Auckland Harbour Bridge and a new
crossing, calling it a “completely hypothetical
scenario”.
And Labour says any such move would have to
be “thought through very carefully” given the cost of
living.
The Infrastructure Commission this week suggested
twin $9 tolls as way of funding a tunnel or a second
bridge across Waitematā Harbour.
In response,
Transport Minister Chris Bishop said any new crossing would
be tolled, but the government was still seeking advice
regarding the existing bridge.
Speaking on Morning
Report‘s political panel, Willis played down the $9
figure.
“I just want to be really clear that that is a
completely hypothetical scenario in the Infrastructure
Commission’s plan. It’s not something that the government
has given consideration to.”
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Willis said both National
and Labour faced a challenge in paying for the “essential”
multi-billion dollar project as no funding had been put
aside.
“How do you pay for it? And what the experts
and advisers always say is, you should make sure that the
users of roads are contributing the cost to them.
“And
actually, that’s a road that would have so many vehicle
movements a day that actually a toll to help pay for it
would mean you could deliver it sooner.”
Labour’s
deputy Carmel Sepuloni said her party was “not completely
opposed” to the notion of tolling but said they needed to be
“thought through very carefully”.
“For someone like me
who doesn’t go over the the Harbour Bridge very often, and
perhaps is in a better position to be able to pay the $9,
it’s not a big deal, but for someone who’s travelling over
that bridge every day and going to work and perhaps not on
the highest income, that becomes quite a big
deal.”
Sepuloni said the government needed to think
about ways to ensure any tolls were affordable given the
pressures of the cost of living.
“We need to make sure
that any measure, including tolls, are fair and
equitable.”
Willis said both political parties had
made decisions in recent years to keep petrol taxes a bit
lower, meaning that road funding had had to be topped up
from general taxation.
But she said that also raised
questions of fairness: “we used to have the concept that
those who use the roads pay for them”.
Auckland mayor
Wayne Brown told Midday Report the $9 figure was
based on “ludicrous proposals” for a new bridge or
tunnel.
“A bridge next door to the existing bridge
which solves nothing, or a tunnel which is even more
insane,” he said.
“If you convert it back to the $9,
people will say ‘gee, that’s a lot’.”
Brown said his
idea of a bridge connecting Point Chevalier to the North
Shore over Meola Reef was more sensible – but he wouldn’t
say whether it should be tolled.
“A, it’s infinitely
cheaper, and B, it ends up on a piece of land the government
owns, so they can develop that and cover a lot of the
costs.”
Brown was supportive of congestion charging in
Auckland because “anything that’s free gets overused
quickly”.
He could not say what routes might be
charged, or when.
Overall he felt “quite positive”
about the commission’s report.
“It sounds like
someone’s listening to me, I’ve been banging on about
infrastructure,” he said.
“We don’t concentrate enough
on what the costs of it are, we blather on about world
class, what we need is good economic functions that suit for
New Zealand … it has to be reliable and sensible and
affordable.”
Too many projects were there as a bid for
votes, rather than solving a problem, he said.
Greater
Auckland editor Matt
Lowrie had told Morning Report that the estimated
revenue from the toll is between $7 and $9 billion, while
the projected costs of the crossing could exceed
$20b.
He said while a second crossing is needed to
provide more capacity, other payment options could be
considered.
Lowrie agreed that tolling both crossings
was necessary because just tolling the new one meant people
would simply continue using the existing bridge, however he
suggested a lower toll be implemented to see the impact of
it.
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