> they can already track you

Our privacy is already being violated so further privacy violation is just fine. Do you really find that convincing?

> if you want to opt out of digital RUCs then that's fine

The whole idea is "user pays" nonsense, shifting the costs of public infrastructure away from the wealthy, and onto lower-income people who are more likely to be travelling by road. Roads, like other publicly-owned transport systems, ought to be paid for collectively not individually.

> roads should most definitely be user pays

Why? What if I'm riding a bicycle? What if I'm riding a fully electric motorbike? What's the logic here Genuine question for both of you.

Also, are you not ignoring legitimate privacy and freedom of movement issues in your enthusiasm to punish an activity that (I presume) you judge to be environmentally harmful?

@va2lam

> The additional expense of monitored user payments is only necessary because of tax cuts

💯%. Not just the recent ones either. Prior to the 1980s and Rogernomics, NZ had most of the taxes on wealth that people now consider political suicide to propose; inheritance taxes, etc.

We had a 90% tax on personal income above a level considered excessive. Which either helped fund universal service, or pushed companies to put more revenue into wages to stop the govt taking it.

@Salty @va2lam

(1/?)

@Salty
> If roads were paid for out of general tax revenue then the bicycle rider would be paying for them at the same rate as everyone else

Not if taxes were progressive and taxed people according to their level of wealth. As they used to in this country, and need to be again in future (see the Tax Working Group report).

@va2lam

(2/?)

@Salty
> the battle of being able to silently track your every move has already been ... lost

'Privacy is dead' is ZuckerBorg's excuse for DataFarming. The underlying logic is same as that used by Act to argue against climate change policy. The damage is done, why cost people money or inconvenience them. This is bunk, in both cases.

The only way to protect privacy and climate is to prevent any new violations, and regulate to roll back existing ones. Not throw up our hands and give up.

(3/?)

@Salty
> it makes no difference to freedom of movement

If RUCs are imposed on every motorised vehicle, on every road, and tolls are added, which becomes much easier with the digital tracking system in place, some low income people will be priced out of using our public roads.

Especially if future governments pump up the cost of both, using the same bullshit arguments you're advancing here. A digital road use tracking system creates massive perverse incentives.

(4/4)

@Salty
> User pays on roads is not just about environmental harm reduction. It's also about congestion management

There are much fairer ways to do that. Like free and frequent public transport.

"User pays" roading discriminates against low income people in the regions, who have few if any options for public transport or active transport. People in cities have far more money spent on their roads, and far more options to avoid using private motor vehicles roads to get around.

> it really does have to be about making driving expensive

... in the cities, where congestion is actually a problem, and people have realistic alternatives. Not as a broad brush applied to the whole country. I've lived most of my adult life without owning a motor vehicle, so I know what I'm talking about.

Also if you think the NatACTs are pushing vehicle tracking for environmental reasons, I have a harbour bridge to sell you ...

> People have a choice about what mode of transport they are using

Check your privilege city boy. Many people in this country actually don't.

Also if it's about damage to roads, why charge by distance? Why not make vehicle registration charges proportional to vehicle weight. Which would target the trucks that cause the vast major of road damage, and push freight back onto trains and coastal shipping.

@Salty

> People can choose the size of vehicle that they are taking

The best time to influence that is when a vehicle is purchased. The second best time is whenever it's registered for use on the road. But coming back to the topic at hand, do the NatACT proposals for digital tracking of vehicles to impose RUCs take vehicle size or weight into account, at all?

@Salty

Sure, I'll agree with those statements, though one would think that having to pay a recurring cost for the vehicle should also help dissuade people from driving unnecessarily large vehicles.

As for vehicle weight, the RNZ piece says:

> "The bill also introduces new tools to manage diversion from toll roads, including the ability to restrict heavy vehicles from using unsuitable alternative routes."

I do not at all like the idea of getting third-party providers involved in this. Sounds pretty ACT-y.

More fundamentally, I think there's a disconnect between how you and I see roads. I'm not super keen on them as public goods. I've heard it suggested elsewhere that the public good should cover a single two-lane road to get to places. Enhanced capacity beyond that is optional. This may be too complicated as policy, but it would keep most rural roads free.

@Salty

(1/?)

@va2lam
> "... the ability to restrict heavy vehicles from using unsuitable alternative routes."

I'm fine with this as a policy. It's just orthogonal to the policy we're actually discussing, which about digital tracking of citizens movements (creepy AF), and charging by distance traveled. In other words, roads that cost more for homeless people living in vehicles, than for middle class camper owners whose neighbourhoods have buses/ trains going to where they work.

@Salty

(2/?)

Mass tracking of citizens' vehicles - without judicial warrants or just cause - that would make it easier for cops and other enforcers (state and corporate) to track and harass homeless people living in vehicles. How much would the Stasi have loved a mass spying technology like this?

(3/?)

@va2lam
> I think there's a disconnect between how you and I see roads. I'm not super keen on them as public goods

Then were talking at cross purposes, about two related but totally different things. You're talking about;

* roads: ribbons of tarmac for cars

I'm talking about;

* public ways: an unenclosed commons, on which citizens have an inalienable common law right to move around the country

(4/4)

Yes, a lot of public ways have roads on them right now, and most of them are used by motor vehicles at times. But they can't be reduced to that. Allowing the rights inherent in public ways to be ignored, because of the way car culture has distorted them is shortsighted. Allowing them to be commodified and enclosed on the basis of weak, greenwash argument is ... well ... disappointing.