Genter Julie AnneHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Associate Minister of Transport): Tēnā koe Mr Chair. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I rise in this debate to take a short call to speak to the Government's plans on road safety and the priority of road safety in the transport budget in the Estimates. I just briefly wanted to talk about why it was important in 2017 the very end of the year in which we came into office—Chris Bishop: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. We have the Minister of Transport in the chair here. This is the Estimates which is a time for members of Parliament to ask questions of the Minister about the Estimates before us. It's not the chance for Associate Ministers to stand up and make speeches about the Government's plans for road safety. We've got an associate spokesperson seeking the call. We've had a very constructive last 40 minutes or so of debate and I think the Minister is quite out of line.CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): My ruling is that the Green Party has an allocated time and any Green member of Parliament may utilise that time the same way that any other member can.Chris Bishop: Speaking to that—CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): No no no. If you've got a new point of order absolutely. I've made a ruling OK? So if you've got a new point of order absolutely make it but if it's relitigating my decision no don't do that.Chris Bishop: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. It's just simply to make the point that—CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): No. If you've got a new point of order please make it but if you're—[Interruption] I'm on my feet. If you're just making a point about the ruling I've just made that's a serious issue which will be dealt with.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: The Green Party transport policy is very much focused on a sustainable transport system and part of that includes looking at safety in our transport system and ensuring that we do not accept loss of life or serious injuries as a necessary consequence of getting around the country. In 2017 when we came into office 378 people—we came in obviously at the very end of 2017 but in that year—lost their lives on our roads and 2864 were seriously injured. That's what led to the Government putting serious significant priority on road safety and that was reflected in our Government policy statement on land transport and in our funding. Since that time in the space of two years this Government has invested nearly half a billion in targeted safety upgrades improving over 2500 kilometres of State highways. But in the next year the New Zealand Transport Agency will spend that much on targeted safety upgrades. So in total we will have spent a billion dollars.These aren't big flashy projects. They're things like fixing the layout of roads that communities have known are dangerous for years. They're putting in place crash barriers whether that's on the side or median barriers near gullies and other high-risk spots. It's those basic improvements to the places where people are currently driving and more likely to be killed or seriously injured. On State highways we've completed 12 significant projects 12 are in construction and 26 are in planning. On local roads 15 significant projects are complete 40 are in construction and 21 are in planning. We immediately increased funding for road police by $100 million after it had been cut by the previous Government and that increase will be reflected in the future as we see our next Government policy statement being rolled out. We were already starting to see the benefits even pre - COVID-19. Now obviously the COVID-19 shutdown led to a serious reduction in vehicle kilometres travelled for a few months and a serious reduction in loss of life on our roads which is great but that of course will not be sustained unless we continue to invest in enforcement in maintenance and in improving the safety of our roads with these kinds of cost-effective improvements.I just want to put it in context because sometimes we hear from the Opposition party why we aren't building roads of national significance when only one person has died on those. Just to put it in context in the last decade the completed roads of national significance only improved 212 kilometres of our State highway network. That is 2 percent of an 11000 kilometre State highway network. So if we went by that logic and it took 10 years to improve 2 percent of our State highway network—which by the way is only where 50 percent of the fatal crashes are happening—it would take us 500 years to improve the State highway network to the point where we'd actually be preventing death and serious injury. So that is not a realistic option and yet we have seen overseas comparable countries like Norway make a significant difference substantially reduce death and serious injuries on their roads—roads that are similar to New Zealand. They are windy they are mountainous they have a small population spread over a large country and they have been able to drastically reduce deaths and serious injuries.This Government has made it a priority. We have taken action. We're already starting to see the benefits of that and we will continue to see the benefits of that—a robust and evidence-based policy unlike the National Party implemented during their 10 years when we saw a catastrophic increase in deaths and serious injuries on our roads from 2013 to 2017.