Party policies, simplified: Transport

The General Election day is approaching on Saturday November 7. We reached out to political parties National, Labour, Te Pāti Māori, ACT, New Zealand First, the Green Party, and The Opportunity Party with the same questions across housing, transport, disability policy, funding, healthcare, education, employment and accessibility.

We asked them how their transport policy would serve disabled communities and whether parties would increase the Total Mobility Scheme subsidy.

Before July 1 this year, the Total Mobility scheme subsidised 75% of taxi fares for disabled and older people. From July 1 this year, the subsidy was reduced to 65% with the Crown share reducing from 25% to 15%. The National-led Government announced these changes to “ensure the scheme remained viable over the short term". Following this, the Government launched a public consultation on the future of Total Mobility and has agreed to:

• “Adopt a national purpose statement for Total Mobility to provide more consistent direction,

• Review funding settings for wheelchair accessible vehicles, including the per-trip payment to drivers,

• Ask NZTA to review provider standards and safeguards to ensure they’re fit for purpose, including considering a wider range of providers such as ride-hail services,

• And ask officials to develop a proposal for a national public transport concession for Total Mobility users, including a free companion fare, for future consideration.”

A National Party spokesperson says the Crown savings are “actively reinvested to help address funding shortfalls faced by public transport authorities.” They expect that this would reduce the combined funding shortfall across the Crown, the National Land Transport Fund and regional councils from around $236 million to $26 million over 2025-2030.

While the Green Party would restore the subsidy to 75% and increase the number of mobility vehicles to meet demand, the Labour and ACT party did not say whether or not they would increase the subsidy.

The Green Party has also pledged* to make public transport free for children, students, apprentices, Community Service Card holders and Total Mobility users, while everyone else would pay a maximum fare of $2.*

An ACT spokesperson said: “The previous increase caused costs to grow beyond available funding, so the Government has set the subsidy at 65% to keep the scheme sustainable while maintaining substantially greater support than the 50% subsidy that applied before 2022.” The party “supports removing unnecessary barriers to mobility and ensuring services [are] effective, accessible, and financially sustainable.”

The Labour Party have committed to capping the cost of public transport to $20 a week in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch and $10 everywhere else.

Te Pāti Māori would provide free public transport to everyone within five years and ensure that disabled people are among the first groups to access free public transport if a staged approach was carried out.

TOP did not respond to our questions. However, the party is campaigning for free public transport.* NZ First did not comment on transport policies.

Responses about past policies, or generic statements without indication of the party's own intention, actions or policies have been excluded.

Summary by party

*indicates policy found outside of questionnaire responses or policy announced after the party’s response was submitted.