Greens call for assurance on train package

Jeanette Fitzsimons wants the rail money to come out of new motorway funds.

The whole Auckland train electrification package needs to be introduced despite government plans to change the regional fuel tax, the Green Party says.

Transport Minister Stephen Joyce said the Government would announce changes to the regional fuel tax early next week and plans to electrify rail would not be in danger.

The previous government allowed the tax of up to 10c a litre to help fund transport projects and Auckland Regional Council had started work on rail electrification.

Under the regional and national fuel taxes combined, Auckland motorists could have faced 14 cents a litre increases within three years.

The Greens want assurance the whole train package - including electric rails, new trains, signal and station upgrades and an integrated ticket system - will remain in place.

"That was a whole package that the Auckland Regional Council developed, as the transport planning authority for Auckland, and in fact if bits of it are going to be left out then we'll have a system that doesn't work properly," Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said.

She said the regional fuel tax was not her "preferred way" of funding the rail electrification. She wanted the money to come out of new motorway funds.

"I don't mind how Stephen Joyce finds the money as long as he finds it."

Mr Joyce said he would make announcements on the tax and on other transport and infrastructure plans next week.

"The announcements next week will be around funding of transport projects and they will include information in regards to the government policy statement ... and there will also be announcements around the future or otherwise of regional fuel taxes."

The policy statement is how the Government prioritises work to be funded by the New Zealand Transport Fund.

Mr Joyce said Auckland was the only region already committed to using the regional fuel tax.

"The primary project there is Auckland rail electrification, which is the biggest one," he said.

"We will put together a funding model for rail electrification in Auckland, yes."

The Labour Party has reacted to the news, saying important regional projects will be dropped because otherwise they will have to be funded nationally.

The regional fuel tax would have created inefficiency and waste from high administrative and compliance costs, Road Transport Forum chief executive Tony Friedlander said.

He welcomed the changes and said the tax would add "substantial extra overhead costs" which would waster a "high proportion" of the tax collected.

Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee was disappointed. He told The New Zealand Herald that the council had already invited tenders for the supply of rolling rail stock.

"It's a carefully crafted model of capital expenditure. If you pull the rope from under it, the whole house of cards can come tumbling down."

Several other regions also had plans for funds raised by the regional fuel tax.

In Wellington it may have gone towards the long awaited Transmission Gully route.

- NZPA