Help us tell the new Government that we want affordable public transport.
Who to email
- If your local MP is part of the National Party, send your email to them. You can find out who your Electorate MP is here, then find their email address here.
- If your local MP is not part of the National Party, send your email to Minister of Transport Simeon Brown: Simeon.Brown@parliament.govt.nz, or Prime Minister Christopher Luxon: Christopher.Luxon@parliament.govt.nz
What to put in your email
1) Introduce yourself
- If you are emailing your electorate MP, tell them that you are a constituent (this means that you live in the area they are responsible for)
- Tell them why you are emailing
2) Explain what you are asking for
- Ask that the government keeps current public transport discounts and expands these to Free Fares for more groups (all under-25s, students, Community Services Card holders, Total Mobility card holders and their support people)
- You could also ask for better investment in public transport, etc.
3) Explain why this is important to you
- Examples of what you could share:
- A personal story about how you or people you care about have been impacted by the discounts over the past couple of years
- The equity, cost of living, and community benefits of keeping public transport affordable
- The climate benefits of keeping public transport affordable
- The economic and public health benefits of reducing congestion (traffic)
- For a summary of some of these arguments and the evidence behind them you can look at our research
4) Optional: Tell them that the majority of New Zealanders want the public transport discounts to stay
- A recent poll by Horizon Research shows that 71% of New Zealand adults support the current public transport discounts being retained (at the time of this polling the youth and children’s discounts were still in place)
- There is also majority support from people who voted for National or NZ First in the 2023 election (55% of National voters want to keep the current public transport discounts)
- See the full poll results here: https://www.horizonpoll.co.nz/page/686/71-say-keep-public-transport-discounts
5) Optional: request a meeting
- If you are emailing your electorate MP, ask them to meet with you to discuss this further. (Note that someone from the Free Fares campaign team might be able to join you for this meeting, just email us at freefaresnz@gmail.com to let us know).
Free Fares 