'Block-busting’ on petrol tax

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32450, 10 November 1970, Page 3

'Block-busting ’ on petrol tax

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, November 9. The Government was adopting a “blockbusting attitude” over the local authorities petroleum tax bill, the president of the New Zealand Automobile Association (Mr J. B. Horrocks) said in a statement today.

He said he had received a telegram from the Acting Prime Minister (Mr Shelton) saying that the Government considered the bill a policy and taxation measure, and had no intention of referring it to the local bills committee as the association had suggested. “The wide opposition from so many sources to the principle of the bill and the haste in which it is being pushed through should be a clear indication to the Government that it would have been wiser to have it referred to a select committee,” said Mr Horrocks. In this way interested organisations and individuals could have expressed thier views.

i The' president of the Road Federation (Mr C. G. Cos tello) has said in an open letter to the Prime Minister (Sir Keith Holyoake) that mem bers of his federation have been disturbed by the bill. “We are thoroughly alarmed at the manner in which funds mulcted from the road user are to be buried in the local body system,” he said. The proposed tax brought together all the dan gers inherent in hidden sub sidies. ■ He said the new tax should be channelled through the national roads fund where everyone would know how much was being gathered, where it w|p going, and how it was beifig spent.