Patch 2024.02

February 2024 proposals

This month’s bills would remove food GST, end Auckland’s fuel tax, link benefits to living costs, charge EVs road fees, and restore pseudoephedrine sales.

• Proposal to remove GST from food — It would remove GST from all food and non-alcoholic drinks bought by consumers.
• Auckland fuel tax would end — The proposal would remove Auckland’s 10-cent-per-litre regional fuel tax from 1 July 2024 and prevent new regional fuel taxes.
• Benefits would track cost-of-living changes — It would link main benefits to consumer-price changes and adjust the minimum family tax credit threshold.
• Electric vehicles would start paying road charges — Light electric vehicles would need road-user-charge licences from 1 April 2024, with different rules for plug-in hybrids and very light vehicles.
• Some pseudoephedrine cold medicines would return — Pseudoephedrine would move to a lower controlled-drug category, allowing pharmacies to sell cold and flu products without prescriptions.
• Proposal to allow remote council meetings dropped — The proposal was dropped; it would have permanently allowed local authority members to join meetings remotely and count towards attendance requirements.
• Proposal to reverse planned tobacco restrictions — The proposal would remove planned limits on tobacco retailers, nicotine levels, and sales to a future generation of adults.
• Māori Health Authority would be disestablished — The proposal would disestablish the Māori Health Authority and move most of its staff and functions to Health New Zealand.
• Legal aid would stop funding some reports — Legal aid would no longer fund reports about an offender’s background and support for sentencing hearings.
• Some company directors could hide home addresses — Directors with serious safety concerns would be able to request that their residential address be replaced publicly by an address for service.
• Rehabilitation programmes could affect parole — People in prison would need to complete specified skills or rehabilitation programmes before being considered for parole.
• Proposal to change social worker rules — It would change rules affecting social workers.
• Fairer tax treatment for some ACC payments — It would tax certain backdated ACC lump-sum payments as if paid in the correct earlier years.
• Proposal to remove the ratepayer roll — It would remove the separate ratepayer roll, so property owners could no longer vote in multiple local elections.
• Proposal to protect benefits from debt orders dropped — The proposal was dropped; it would have protected main-benefit payments from being taken to repay civil debts.
• Water services would return to councils — It would return responsibility for water services to local authorities and repeal the current water-services system laws.
• Proposal to extend breast screening dropped — The proposal was dropped; it would have extended free routine breast-cancer screening from age 69 to age 74.
• Proposal to protect victims from prisoner contact — It would require Corrections and prison managers to prevent unwanted contact between prisoners and protected people or crime victims.
• Proposal to protect Māori electorates dropped — The proposal was dropped; it would have given Māori electorates the same constitutional protection as general electorates.