Genter Julie Anne: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGenter Julie Anne: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 15 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:9659. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]10.JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green) to the Associate Minister of Transport: Will he support the Green Party plan to make 30kilometres an hour the default speed limit outside schools given that kids have less than a 50:50 chance of surviving being hit by a car travelling at the current default speed limit of 50kilometres an hour?Hon CRAIG FOSS (Associate Minister of Transport): Of course this Government supports making our roads safer for all users. We are spending approximately $1 billion each year on road safety which includes funding towards safer roads roadsides and dangerous intersections all of which benefit those walking and cycling both young and old. I note schools and their local communities already have the ability through their local road-controlling authority to lower speed limits around schools to 30 kilometres if that is what is required. This allows local solutions to local issues supported by local communities.Julie Anne Genter: Does he acknowledge that the current process for reducing speed limits is unnecessarily bureaucratic and puts hurdles in place for those local authorities that would like to drop the speed limit outside of schools and that explains why fewer than 20 percent of schools have the safe speed limit of 30 kilometres an hour in front of schools?Hon CRAIG FOSS: No I do not accept that that is the reason. The process that we have now has been in place—I think it was last changed in 2003 under the previous Government supported by that member’s party. So no I do not accept that that is the reason why some of these speed limits are not changed by local authorities or road-controlling authorities as that member would like.Julie Anne Genter: Given that the number of children walking and cycling to school has declined significantly in the time since this process was put in place will his Government consider changing the process to make the default speed limit outside schools the safe speed limit of 30 kilometres an hour to make our kids safer?Hon CRAIG FOSS: No. One size does not fit all here. Local communities do know best about their conditions around local schools. I do note we have rural schools and urban schools and sometimes changing a speed limit on a road be it a 100 kilometre-per-hour road or a 70 kilometre-per-hour road can in fact make more danger or create more risk than in fact a 70 kilometre-per-hour limit which many schools already have. I also note that we note concerns around this—so there are limits in and around passing school buses where if a school bus is stopped the limit is 20 kilometres per hour regardless of which direction the car is travelling.Julie Anne Genter: Can he explain why his Government supports 30 kilometres an hour as the default speed limit when driving past road workers but not when it is around schools where our kids’ safety is threatened?Hon CRAIG FOSS: They are two totally different issues. A road worker in the middle of the road obviously working on an infrastructure investment—possibly a cycleway possibly one of the safer roads that this Government is investing in—needs to be kept as safe as possible. But of course every life is as valuable as the next.Julie Anne Genter: I seek leave to table the research done for the Government which shows that 30 kilometres an hour is the appropriate speed around—Mr SPEAKER: Order! We just need the source of the research and the date.Julie Anne Genter: This is the Safer Speeds Programme which was a collaboration by the New Zealand Police the New Zealand Transport Agency the Ministry of Transport and ACC.Mr SPEAKER: And it is available on the website?Julie Anne Genter: It is.Mr SPEAKER: Then I am not putting the leave.