Government to reintroduce full fuel tax next year

Kiwis can soon expect more pain at the pump with the New Zealand Government today announcing it will reintroduce its full fuel tax next year.

Petrol and diesel prices are currently 25 cents cheaper thanks to the fuel tax discount introduced earlier this year to help alleviate the cost of living crisis.

The discount was only intended to run until the end of January 2023 but has been extended for another month until February. It will then decrease to 12.5 cents in March before the full tax is reintroduced in April 2023.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson said that the Government had already spent more than $1 billion on providing cheaper fuel over the past year and stated that the practice was not sustainable.

The equivalent Road User charge discount will end on January 31, 2023.

Public transport fares were also halved back in March of this year and will be extended until the end of next March before full prices come back. However, people with a community services card will be entitled to half-price fares permanently.

The changes couldn’t have come at a worse time either with the Treasury predicting that New Zealand will head into a recession in 2023 with the country’s GDP expected to fall by 0.8 per cent.

Adding fuel to the fire is that petrol and diesel prices have been tipped to rise in the new year following increased demand as the world comes out of the Covid-19 pandemic and amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.