30 September 2019

The Associate Transport Minister needs to give at least a thousand New Zealanders a decent answer as to why their contributions to the car tax debate were dismissed as nothing more than spam, National’s Transport spokesperson Chris Bishop says.

“Julie Anne Genter’s ministry has made a mockery of the feebate public consultation by blocking at least a thousand submissions that were lodged via a website set up by National.

“A total of 1594 people made formal submissions through National’s website – many of them opposed to Labour’s car tax – and it appears only 500 or so got through before the Transport Ministry blocked the remainder because it considered them spam.

“We can’t have any confidence now that the views of all New Zealanders have been properly considered after the Ministry recorded those 500 submissions as one, completely skewing the public feedback.

“There was a real, unique, right-thinking person behind every one of those submissions, and for the Ministry to dismiss them because they echoed a similar message is disrespectful and disgraceful.

“Julie Anne Genter must fix this now by reopening public consultation on the feebate so that all New Zealanders can have their voices heard on this issue.

“If she doesn’t then the only conclusion we can draw is that she is incapable of listening to anyone who disagrees with her.”

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