Government extends fuel tax relief, half price public transport until January 2023

The Government has announced the cut to the fuel excise will be extended until January 2023.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson said half-price public transport fares and the extension to the Road User Charges cut would also continue until January 31, 2023.

The initial cut was brought in to reduce cost of living pressures on households, in March 2022. Robertson’s announcement came a day before Statistics NZ was to provide the inflation figure for the June quarter.

“We are doing this because we want Kiwis to have some certainty for the rest of the year in the face of volatile fuel prices and ongoing cost of living pressure,” Robertson said.

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“We can afford to do this.”

The Government produced Treasury modelling to suggest that its excise cut had reduced inflation by 0.5% in the June 2022 quarter.

The extension, which was widely expected given elevated global oil prices, will mean that while petrol prices largely remain in the $3 to $3.50 per litre range, they will not go another 25c higher.

Without the extension, the Government estimated that a 40 litre tank of petrol would cost an extra $11.

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