It is pleasing to see the hundreds of New Zealanders who were blocked from having their say on Labour’s car tax will now have their submissions counted, Leader of the Opposition Simon Bridges says.
About 1600 people submitted on the Government’s feebate through National’s website, but the Transport Ministry considered these submissions to be spam and blocked them after receiving about 500. Those 500 submissions were then treated as one submission.
“It’s disappointing that we ended up in this situation to begin with, but credit to the Ministry of Transport for acknowledging its error and taking steps to correct it,” Mr Bridges says.
“The Government cannot ignore the fact its proposed car tax is a bad idea. It will increase the price of some of New Zealand’s most popular vehicles by up to $3000.
“This policy will hurt farmers, tradespeople and low-income earners for whom low-emission vehicles will still be too expensive, and it will only reduce emissions by 0.09 per cent over 20 years, according to Treasury.
“National has said all along that it’s not fair to make families pay thousands more for a used seven-seater van while wealthy executives get discounts on a Tesla Model 3.
“Given the large number of submissions through our website and the 14,060 signatures we collected to stop Labour’s car tax, a lot of New Zealanders feel the same way.
“We hope Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter will take all of this feedback on board and do the right thing by scrapping the car tax.”
