Nats eye road-user charges for all

The National Party says it wants to make all vehicles subject to road-user charges (RUC) but has not committed to a timeframe for doing this if it ends up forming the next government.

Simeon Brown, transport spokesman, explains light electric vehicles (EVs) would start attracting the charges after March 31, 2024, when their current exemption expires.

It will put owners of EVs in a similar situation to those of diesel and heavy vehicles who have to purchase RUC based on the number of kilometres they travel.

Brown, pictured, says in order to ensure the National Land Transport Fund remains sustainable for the future, the party eventually wants all vehicles moved to RUC and away from the use of petrol excise.

“We think that is a much fairer way to charge for road use, than simply just charging excise, which is actually quite a regressive form of taxation,” he told Stuff.

While he set no dates for that shift to take place, he says it is “becoming more urgent” as the number of EVs and hybrids on our roads increase, leading to less of a contribution being made at the pumps.

Brown adds fuel excise is cheap to collect and hard to evade, but National is committed to making the change. He notes better and more efficient technology will be required to ensure RUC can be collected on a wider scale.

“There’s obviously a lot of work that will need to be done around the details to ensure that can be done in an efficient manner.”