Election 2026 Policies

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Forums › Politics › Election 2026 Policies - Labour

sen8or

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#324900 10-Jun-2026 11:21

Not sure if this is allowed or not, but could be a good placeholder for policies announced for the upcoming election.

Second cab off the rank, capped public transport costs (first being 3 free Doctors announced an age ago)

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/labour-to-release-new-cost-of-living-policy-at-auckland-train-station/I6N6GZ3FGVF3LCRY4IQEGH6VYY/

Under the policy, weekly transport costs in the major centres will be capped at $20 per person. Not sure if that applies to mixed transport (e.g. - train to city centre then bus from there), but details will likely be available.

Seems like a sensible policy, encourages use of public transport reducing one possible barrier. If there are sufficient public transport options that are efficient, frequent and readily accessible for commuters I can see this being quite a good policy.

Costs aren't huge in the scheme of things and they are taking it from national road fund. Roads have not been a pet project for Labour historically so it fits within their wheel house.

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#3501751 10-Jun-2026 11:29

Auckland Transport has a $50 weekly fare cap:

https://at.govt.nz/bus-train-ferry/at-hop-card/7-day-fare-cap-for-auckland-public-transport

I don't know how it works elsewhere. Imo it makes more sense than National tax cuts.

gzt

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#3501754 10-Jun-2026 11:46

+ $10 cap outside main centers

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/597767/labour-vows-to-put-20-a-week-cap-on-public-transport-10-outside-main-centres

Cost is $65 million each year, using about 1 percent of the National Land Transport Fund

enserf

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#3501775 10-Jun-2026 12:39

They're going to need a lot more than that if they are going to win.

A bit like the 3 doctors visits they have been making a song & dance about- also great, but hardly a show stopper.

I do hope they get in- life is pretty rough for those at the bottom on the socio-economic scale. I'm sure it's booming if you're a landlord; not so much a small business.

GV27

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#3501779 10-Jun-2026 12:49

I don't rate the three free doctor's visits as it does nothing to actually improve access to GPs, wait times or accessibility to testing labs, which IMO would be a better focus on the money.

Plus it assumes endless house price inflation (ahead of the general rate of inflation in the budget from other government policies, no less) to free up any actual tax revenue flowing through from gains. So do we want house prices to keep going up, or is that a good thing all of a sudden?

This is better though. It's universal and would be less administratively burdensome than a targeted benefit. There's two things that don't work: 1) not everyone has access to the same levels of PT (i.e. North Shore of Auckland has ferries and a busway while big chunks of South and West Auckland have no access to anything approaching rapid transit at all) and 2) this shouldn't come at the expense of actual improvements to the transport system itself.

I like the shift though, it shows some thought put into the policy and seems like a better idea than the CGT they keep serving up over and over again.

SaltyNZ

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#3501782 10-Jun-2026 13:02

It's a good policy but does nothing for rural communities where there is no public transport in the first place. They're going to need fuel subsidies.

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mattwnz

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#3501809 10-Jun-2026 15:25

gzt: + $10 cap outside main centers

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/597767/labour-vows-to-put-20-a-week-cap-on-public-transport-10-outside-main-centres

Cost is $65 million each year, using about 1 percent of the National Land Transport Fund

National seem to think it is going to cost $250 million. Can't really trust politicans numbers IMO as they are difficult to fact check.

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mattwnz

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#3501810 10-Jun-2026 15:28

SaltyNZ:

It's a good policy but does nothing for rural communities where there is no public transport in the first place. They're going to need fuel subsidies.

Also rural already pay more for fuel. It does also cover the Wairarapa train line, which nearly costs $20 just for a single trip! But this policy is good because train travel in NZ is just far too expensive. But I would prefer to see single trip a lot cheaper. ALso in on peak times trains are already standing room only, and if there was a crash like occurred in Wellington a few days ago, those that were standing would have likely been very injured and it is less safe to be standing

OldGeek

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#3501814 10-Jun-2026 15:50

SaltyNZ:

It's a good policy but does nothing for rural communities where there is no public transport in the first place. They're going to need fuel subsidies.

Google estimates there are 700,000-800,000 of us who live in semi-rural or rural areas. That is a sizeable minority whose road taxes will help to pay for a benefit they cannot receive.

In Kerikeri there is public transport provided by the Northland Regional Council. Services run twice weekly and each service is a single route with return service.

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gzt

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#3501846 10-Jun-2026 21:07

OldGeek: Google estimates there are 700,000-800,000 of us who live in semi-rural or rural areas. That is a sizeable minority whose road taxes will help to pay for a benefit they cannot receive.

I am unlikely to receive any direct benefit. Even so, I think it is worth doing. It is very likely to reduce traffic and the associated CO2 emissions. As a road user I'm likely to indirectly benefit from the reduced traffic. I prefer this kind of economic and environmentally oriented development policy over simplistic tax cuts and the like.

GV27

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#3501904 11-Jun-2026 06:56

I want to understand how the savings work. Chch already has a $25 cap, apparently. Auckland has a $50 cap. It seems Wellington does not. I've seen some discussion that the benefit there could be thousands of dollars a year for some train commuters.

How I feel about this will largely be decided by whether the Blues beat the Hurricanes this weekend.

sen8or

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#3501911 11-Jun-2026 08:13

Its highly likely that Labour used the same political calculator that all parties do, overstate the benefits, understate the costs.

Is it a vote winner, hardly, but its a very clever policy in that its seen to directly target multiple areas (congestion, cost of living, emissions) and is likely to appeal to a fairly wide base. If this is the start of their campaigning, I'd say its a reasonable start.

No policy is going to have universal appeal, there will always be winners and losers (as pointed out, rural), but labours voter base is not traditionally rural.

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OldGeek

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#3501912 11-Jun-2026 08:16

GV27:

I want to understand how the savings work. Chch already has a $25 cap, apparently. Auckland has a $50 cap. It seems Wellington does not. I've seen some discussion that the benefit there could be thousands of dollars a year for some train commuters

As I understand it, the Government cap applies, replacing existing caps where they are higher, and the Government pays out to the provider.

Logically, any local body with a lower cap will scrap it and take the Government subsidy.

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invisibleman18

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#3501979 11-Jun-2026 10:09

My train fare from Lower Hutt to Wellington is $5.24 each way, call it $5 for simplicity so it’s $50 a week if I go in all 5 days. If I work from home one day a week it’s $40. So a $20 cap would be handy. But with a lot of policy still to come I suspect much of that $20 saving will just end up be redirected to something else and I won’t actually see it in my pocket.

The $65 million cost seems too low. They said it would be a $1200 saving per person on average. $65 million at $1200 per person is 54,000 people which seems light for the whole country. With a quick google I found a study online (using 2021/22 data) that said the below:

That would be around 29,000 people commuting into Wellington via public transport alone. It’s probably more now as that figure comes from the time of mass working from home. 54,000 for the whole country doesn’t seem right so I would think the cost is a lot higher than what they’ve said.

Handle9

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#3502166 12-Jun-2026 02:38

invisibleman18:

The $65 million cost seems too low. They said it would be a $1200 saving per person on average. $65 million at $1200 per person is 54,000 people which seems light for the whole country.

The numbers look like bullshit (again.)

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#3502167 12-Jun-2026 02:40

OldGeek:

Google estimates there are 700,000-800,000 of us who live in semi-rural or rural areas. That is a sizeable minority whose road taxes will help to pay for a benefit they cannot receive.

It's also a sizeable minority that gets roading substantially subsided by people living in cities.

It'd be nice to see a policy being judged on the overall benefit to the country rather than what's in it for me but here we are.

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