New Zealanders are being reminded, very directly, that transport policy is not an abstract debate.

The current fuel situation shows why. The country is not being told to panic-buy fuel. Official advice is that supply remains stable and stocks are sufficient. But the Government is actively monitoring international disruption, New Zealand remains in Phase 1 of the National Fuel Response Plan, and households and businesses are being told to plan for higher fuel costs in the weeks ahead.

At the same time, prices at the pump have risen sharply. Stats NZ reported that petrol prices increased 12.6 percent from March to April 2026, while diesel prices rose 36.6 percent over the same month. That is not a small movement at the margin. It is the kind of price shock that flows through freight, groceries, business costs, household budgets, and everyday decisions about whether people can afford to get to work, get children to school, or keep a small business operating.

That is the real-world context in which transport choices are made.

For most households, the question is not, “What is the ideal vehicle in a perfect policy model?” The question is much more practical: “What can I afford that will do the job?”

That is why affordability must sit at the heart of every serious discussion about fleet renewal, fuel efficiency, safety, and transport decarbonisation.

Affordability determines whether change actually happens

As an industry, we support cleaner, safer vehicles and a lower-carbon transport system. But there is a simple reality that cannot be wished away: if ordinary New Zealanders cannot afford to replace their vehicles, we will not improve the fleet at the pace we need.

A vehicle that is technically better but financially out of reach does not reduce emissions in someone’s driveway. It does not replace an older, less efficient car. It does not improve safety for a family using a tired vehicle because they cannot afford anything newer.

This is where the used-import channel matters.

VIA members operate in the part of the market where real households buy real cars. We are not primarily dealing with the corporate fleet market, nor the luxury end of the new-vehicle market. We are dealing with the part of the market where people make careful trade-offs between price, reliability, fuel economy, safety, mileage, condition, and monthly affordability.

Those buyers are not anti-environment. They are not ignoring safety. They are operating inside a budget.

Good policy has to start from that reality.

The $15,000 ceiling

Decades of market experience tell us there is a hard affordability ceiling for many used-vehicle buyers at around $15,000, give or take about $1,000 either side.

Once the all-up retail price — including the purchase price, shipping, compliance, repairs, levies, and regulatory costs — moves much beyond that level, the pool of buyers drops away quickly.

That is not about vehicle quality. It is about household budgets.

A family already dealing with higher fuel prices, higher insurance, higher food costs, and higher mortgage or rent payments does not suddenly find another $5,000 or $10,000 because a policy setting assumes they should. If the replacement vehicle becomes too expensive, the household response is often not to buy a better vehicle. It is to delay buying anything at all.

That matters, because delayed replacement means slower fleet turnover.

And slower fleet turnover means older, less efficient, and often less safe vehicles stay on the road for longer.

Used imports are a practical fleet-renewal tool

The used vehicles imported into New Zealand are not new. That is obvious. But that does not mean they are old in the context of the New Zealand fleet.

The typical used import is around 10 years old. The vehicles being pushed out of the fleet are often much older again. In practical terms, an affordable 10-year-old hybrid, small petrol vehicle, or efficient family car can be a significant improvement over a 20-year-old vehicle that is more expensive to run, less efficient, and less safe.

That is the point that is too often missed.

Fleet improvement does not only happen when someone buys a brand-new electric vehicle. It also happens when an older, poorer-performing vehicle is replaced by a newer, cleaner, safer, more efficient used vehicle that the buyer can actually afford.

That is not a second-best argument. It is the way mass-market fleet renewal works.

The new-vehicle market introduces technology. The used-vehicle market diffuses that technology through the wider population.

Both roles matter.

The wrong policy can slow the transition

The risk is that policy tries to load today’s highest ambition onto yesterday’s vehicle stock.

Used imports are drawn from vehicles that were manufactured years ago, mainly for the Japanese domestic market. We cannot pretend that a 10-year-old used vehicle can be regulated as if it were a brand-new model arriving fresh from a manufacturer’s current global product line.

If we apply standards, penalties, and compliance costs in a way that ignores the age, source, price point, and availability of used vehicles, we do not magically create a cleaner fleet.

We simply make many useful replacement vehicles uneconomic to import.

That shrinks supply. It reduces choice. It pushes up prices. And it risks locking households into older vehicles for longer.

That is the opposite of what good transport policy should be trying to achieve.

Where the strongest ambition should sit

The strongest decarbonisation ambition should sit where the market can best absorb it: the new-vehicle sector, especially the corporate and business fleet market.

That is the part of the market with greater access to capital, stronger purchasing power, and a clearer ability to absorb the early cost of new technology. It is also the part of the market that creates tomorrow’s used vehicles.

If a business buys a low-emission vehicle today, that vehicle can flow into the second-hand market in five to ten years’ time at a price point closer to what households can afford.

That is how transition works.

The new market leads. The used market scales. Households benefit when the technology eventually reaches the price band where they can participate.

But that pipeline only works if policy recognises the different roles of the new and used sectors.

Affordability is climate policy

In a cost-of-living crisis, affordability is not an excuse for inaction. It is the condition that makes action possible.

If transport decarbonisation becomes something only higher-income households and corporate fleets can participate in, it will fail as a national strategy. It will also lose public support.

A fair and effective transition has to work for the family replacing a worn-out car, the shift worker driving across town, the small business owner running a van or light truck, and the household that simply needs a reliable vehicle within reach.

That means policy needs to ask a simple question before imposing additional cost:

Will this help people move into a better vehicle, or will it keep them in an older one for longer?

If the answer is the latter, the policy needs to be rethought.

VIA’s position

VIA’s position is straightforward.

We support cleaner, safer, lower-emission transport. But the pathway has to be practical. It has to reflect the actual vehicles available from source markets. It has to recognise the price points ordinary households can afford. And it has to understand that fleet turnover is one of the most important levers New Zealand has.

The used-import channel has helped New Zealand households access better vehicles for decades. It can continue to help improve the fleet — but only if regulatory settings allow affordable replacement vehicles to keep flowing.

The current fuel and cost-of-living pressures should sharpen the focus. They remind us that transport policy is ultimately about people’s real choices, made under real financial constraints.

Affordability is not a barrier to decarbonisation.

Affordability is how decarbonisation reaches ordinary New Zealanders.