Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Well I learnt absolutely nothing about the Labour Party's position on this bill from that speech. In fact all that speech was saying was Look we're trying to pass something; this is something so we're going to vote for it." That's basically the Labour Party's position on everything at the moment: "We're going to address crime; this bill's about crime so it's good. Please vote for it." That's about the depth of this Government's position when it comes to these issues at the moment. They have lost this country when it comes to law and order. They have lost the country when it comes to these actually very serious issues. And now they're trying in the last week of this Parliament to give the perception that they actually take these issues seriously when they've had six long years to actually try and fix some of the problems facing our country.Then when they come and they actually put a fleeing drivers bill to Parliament to try and make a difference they have to chuck something at the back to have a go at people who might go 31 kilometres per hour down a 30 kilometre street in Auckland. That is absolutely shameful. But that just shows this Government: they can't even just pass a bill about fleeing drivers; they have to try and stick some of their agenda into that piece of legislation as well. That's the bit that the National Party objects to. We don't have a problem with what this bill's trying to do around fleeing drivers trying to crack down on fleeing drivers. We've seen the problems that they've caused in Auckland and around New Zealand. But what this bill also does is allow for average-speed checks to be put in place around our country to try to enforce the slower speed limits that this Government is ramming down New Zealanders' throats. That's not going to stop a fleeing driver but what it will do is be used by road-controlling authorities up and down our country to enforce the blanket speed-limit reductions that we're seeing put in place.I asked the Minister in the committee of the whole House about an example on Nelson Street in Auckland a street which has just had its speed limit drop from 50 to 40 and there's a trial happening on that street there. I asked the Minister "Why is that happening on that street?" because the Minister told the House "No we're only going to see these happen on high-risk stretches of State highway." Well there's actually a trial happening on a non - State highway: Nelson Street in Auckland. It's not a State highway; it's a local road and it's just gone from 50 kilometres an hour down to 40 kilometres per hour. Then we heard the Minister say "Well it's not going to be used on roads where there's lots of intersections." Well I'm not sure if David Parker's actually been down Nelson Street in Auckland but there's lots and lots and lots and lots of intersections down Nelson Street.So whilst the Minister might get up in this House and say this is only going to be used on highrisk stretches of State highways this bill has no criteria around what types of roads these averagespeed checks can be put on. It doesn't include the term "high-risk"—and I just heard from the member who just took her seat Vanushi Walters that this will be about high-risk stretches of road. There's no criteria in this piece of legislation that limits the ability for these to be put on just high-risk roads—there's no definition of "high-risk" included in the legislation. I take Mr Court's point: if we've got some high-risk stretches of road why don't we go and fix them?Under this Government what have they done on transport? They cancelled the entire roads of national significance programme that National put in place to fix some of the most dangerous stretches of road. Ōtaki to Levin: over 50 deaths and serious injuries in the last five years and that's a road that this Government cancelled. They cancelled it as soon as they came into office—one of the most dangerous stretches of State highway in New Zealand and instead of fixing that road what this Government would rather do is put an average-speed check in place. That's their solution to road safety: an average-speed check on Ōtaki to north of Levin one of the most dangerous stretches of road in our country the most high-risk stretches of road—"Instead of trying to fix the road we'll cancel the fix and we'll put in an average-speed check."What about the Tauranga Northern Link? This Government cancelled the Tauranga Northern Link. It was going out for tender when this Government came to office back in 2017 but they couldn't wait to chop up those tender documents which construction firms were tendering spending their own money putting tender documents together to tender to fix one of the most dangerous roads in New Zealand. They cancelled the tender documents and instead what did they do? Well we'll just put an average-speed check in place on that road. I could go through example after example. Cambridge to Piarere—another incredibly dangerous stretch of road. What's this Government's solution there? An average-speed check on that piece of road too. So the National Party opposes this part of the bill because not only is it not going to be used appropriately on our State highways we also know it's going to be used inappropriately on local roads.In Auckland Auckland Transport has just finished consulting on more blanket speed limits for something like 26 percent of the local roads in Auckland which they're now going to be reducing to 30 kilometres per hour—30 kilometres per hour on almost a quarter of the roads in Auckland.Simon Court: Walking speed.SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Well I mean some kids can bike to school faster than that. Are they going to get caught by the average-speed checks too? Well that's the reality of these ridiculous blanket speed-limit rules that have been forced on to people up and down this country—Simon Court: National and ACT will repeal them won't they?SIMEON BROWN: —in suburbs across New Zealand. We will repeal the land transport setting of speed-limit rule—absolutely Mr Court—because we don't agree with those blanket speed-limit reductions that are being imposed on our suburbs up and down our country.Because there's no criteria there's no definition of "high-risk" and there's no limitation to just being on State highways what this bill does is it will now allow road-controlling authorities up and down this country to put average-speed checks on 30-kilometre-per-hour stretches of our roads up and down our country. That is revenue raising. That is slowing people down. That is not actually about road safety.The evidence through the Justice Committee was very very clear: if this Government was serious about road safety they would be focused on things which they have failed to do like making sure that the police are doing the 3 million breath tests that they are required to do every year. They've been doing only half the breath tests that they're meant to be doing—half the breath tests. Alcohol and drugs are the number one contributor to deaths and serious injuries on our roads and all this Government is focused on is speed—reducing speed limits slowing people down.Here's another example of that: whilst our police have not been doing the required number of breath tests this Government was dragged kicking and screaming to pass legislation to allow the police to do random oral roadside drug testing. Then they finally passed it and the legislation doesn't work. They promised two weeks ago—they promised two weeks ago—"Oh no we'll fix it; we'll fix it after Christmas." "Fix it after Christmas."—that's the approach this Government takes to the real issues. Drugs and alcohol are killing people on our roads. This Government has been soft and slow when it comes to addressing those issues. They've kicked the can down the road but here in the dying hours of this Parliament instead of fixing the broken legislation around drug testing on the side of our roads which they know needs to be fixed—they've even announced they think it needs to be fixed—they've announced their intention to bring legislation to this Parliament. Instead of us using urgency and the end of this Parliament to try and save lives through random oral roadside drug testing something which we know will work to drive down our road toll they're ramming through legislation to be able to enforce average-speed checks on 30 kilometre per hour speed limits on Auckland roads and roads across New Zealand. That is shameful. The National Party opposes that part of the bill."