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Strypey
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz  ·  activity timestamp last week

"A bill to make road tolling easier and shift Road User Charges (RUCs) towards a digital tracking system has been introduced to Parliament."

#RussellPalmer, 2025

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/578768/bill-to-expand-road-user-charges-introduced

This is a horrific violation of basic rights to privacy and freedom of movement. The 1990s National govt was trying to corporatise our public road network when they got voted out in 1999. We need to kick this lot to the kerb too. If Labour won't commit to undoing this, the Greens need to make it a bottom line.

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dp
@damianpeterson@mastodon.social replied  ·  activity timestamp last week

@strypey isn't it that the digital tracking side of things is only if you're a company who drives on roads off the network to prove where you've been?? Everyone else doesn't need to be tracked?

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Strypey
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied  ·  activity timestamp last week

@damianpeterson
> isn't it that the digital tracking side of things is only if you're a company who drives on roads off the network to prove where you've been?

No. It's everyone on the road. Ostensibly as a way of replacing fuel taxes with toll roads as the "user pays" funding for road building, which is bad enough. But since all that data about where everybody drives is being collected by a government department ...

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Simply Simon
@Salty@mastodon.nz replied  ·  activity timestamp last week

@strypey Counterpoint: they can already track you using cameras all over the place or the phone in your pocket if they want to. So if you want to opt out of digital RUCs then that's fine, but you will need to pay increased transaction fees to cover running that service for a tiny handful of people - because I'm sure as shit sick of paying an extra $12 a pop on top of the actual tax in order for them to print out another unnecessary polluting piece of plastic.

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Strypey
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied  ·  activity timestamp last week

@Salty
> they can already track you

Our privacy is already being violated so further privacy violation is just fine. Do you really find that convincing?

> if you want to opt out of digital RUCs then that's fine

The whole idea is "user pays" nonsense, shifting the costs of public infrastructure away from the wealthy, and onto lower-income people who are more likely to be travelling by road. Roads, like other publicly-owned transport systems, ought to be paid for collectively not individually.

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Patrick Lam :tinoflag:
@va2lam@mastodon.nz replied  ·  activity timestamp last week

@strypey @Salty nah, roads should most definitely be user pays and transit shouldn't

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Simply Simon
@Salty@mastodon.nz replied  ·  activity timestamp last week

@va2lam @strypey Exactly: make people pay to drive on the roads, and buses, trains, ferries etc. free.

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leighelse{}
@leighelse@mastodon.nz replied  ·  activity timestamp last week

@Salty @va2lam @strypey The crazy thing about this is that income tax was supposed to fund all these things. The additional expense of monitored user payments is only necessary because of tax cuts.

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