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Waikato Expressway - Source: ONE News -
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A billion dollars is going to be pumped into building new highways around New Zealand but it will cost Kiwis at the petrol pump.
In the next two years, six cents a litre is going to be added in fuel taxes for motorists right across the country.
National has announced they are changing direction on transport policy and it's all about roads.
One billion dollars of extra money will be pumped into state highway projects over the next three years, including completing the 100km Waikato Express way between Mercer and Cambridge.
"About 70% of all freight in New Zealand goes by road and about 84% of people go to work by car, truck or motorbike so we need good roads to grow and compete," says Steven Joyce, Transport Minister.
But there is a catch - an extra three cents a litre in fuel tax will be added to petrol prices from October 2009 then an additional three cents a litre tax cuts in from 2010.
And almost half of the $1 billion for highways comes from raiding other aspects of the transport budget, some of that is cutting administrative costs but it also includes cutting back on public transport initiatives including walking and cycling programmes.
"They're embracing the dinosaur economy, the fossil fuel economy, which is the old economy. Barack Obama is not spending on new motor way projects, it's on new energy, clean energy green projects because that's the economy of the future," says Russel Norman, Greens co-leader.
The government will go ahead with new electric trains for Auckland and new passenger trains for Wellington but will scrap the regional fuel tax that was going to pay for that.
That means the nine and a half cents a litre that Auckland drivers were going to have to pay as a regional fuel tax has been cancelled, instead the whole country will have to pay for Auckland's trains out of their taxes and Kiwi Rail will run the service.
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