The Government’s reduction in fuel taxes announced this week are welcome but are an ”incredibly tentative step” given the enormous increase in fuel prices in the last few weeks due to the Russia – Ukraine war and general inflation, according to the Social Credit political party.

Leader Chris Leitch said the government could have doubled the cuts if it had wanted to make a meaningful dent in the extra costs being faced by fuel users rather than just looking like it had.

“More importantly, Road User Charges for transport operators should have been cut by substantially more because these feed into the price of every item on shop shelves,” he said.

“It should have stopped charging Road User Charges from midnight for all commercial vehicles and agricultural contractors and refunded all Road User Charges for those vehicles unused at that point.”

“The cuts announced this week are only costing $350 million, and that’s peanuts in comparison to the $55 billion that the Reserve Bank has created in the last two years.

“The government could have used that credit creation capability to fund these much bolder cost reduction moves,” Leitch said.