LPG Industry Calls For Urgent Tax Moratorium

New Zealand's gas transport fuels industry is calling for a moratorium on excise tax to save it from complete collapse.

The executive director of the LPG Association, Peter Gilbert, said New Zealand's automotive LPG and CNG industries are on the verge of extinction.

They cannot compete effectively because of anti-competitive Government excise tax policies that favour diesel and discourage use of cleaner burning LPG and CNG.

"Use of LPG and CNG is declining rapidly, principally because Government tax policies make diesel so cheap at the pump.

"Government's tax take from LPG and CNG, which is under $6 million a year now and falling by around 15% a year, will dry up in a couple of years anyway as sales continue to fall away.

"So Government will be further out of pocket, New Zealand will have lost the advantage of transport fuels that are better for the environment and we will have witnessed the collapse of yet another New Zealand industry.

"But by foregoing less than $6 million a year now, Government can avert all those scenarios.

"Plus it would help to create a sustainable and healthy home-grown transport fuels industry. It's a business investment that will produce long term environmental and economic gains."

Mr Gilbert said the excise tax moratorium should be applied in the context of a Government-industry partnership designed to send a Buy New Zealand-made fuels message to high mileage motorists.

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