John MacDonald: I say no to mayor's speed limit increase

When you drive the Southern Motorway between Rolleston and Christchurch, how fast do you go? 

According to the mayor of Selwyn, Sam Broughton, chances are you go faster than 100 kph. Which is why he thinks the speed limit on that piece of road should be lifted to 120 kph. 

An idea which I think is ridiculous.  

I’m thinking it probably has something to do with the come-to-Jesus moment I had about speed limits when I was travelling around the South Island last summer. When I realised that doing 80 kph on a 100 kph is, actually, quite enjoyable. And safer. 

I used to be all-for getting back to the old 50 kph and 100 kph. Not so much now. 

Where this idea of the Selwyn mayor's has come from, is the work the Government’s doing at the  moment reviewing speed limits around the country. 

Quite rightly, it’s got its sights set on some of the non-sensical speed limit changes that have popped-up around the place recently.  

And some of the speed limits you see are nuts. Case in point: Colombo Street, in Christchurch, heading towards the Cashmere Hills. It reduces for a very short stretch because of a nearby school - which isn’t even on Colombo Street. 

Then you go a bit further up the road to where there is a school on Colombo Street, but there’s no speed reduction! 

So Transport Minister Simeon Brown has sent around a document to local councils asking for their feedback. 

And what the councils are being asked to do is give advice on highways they think should have a speed limit of 120 kph instead of 100. 

And Selwyn’s Sam Broughton has told the Government that that beautiful stretch of motorway from Rolleston to Brougham Street should have a speed limit of 120, because a lot of drivers are travelling faster than 100, anyway. 

Which is an interesting way of justifying it. ‘Oh look, they're breaking the rule so let’s change it.’ 

He says in his letter to the Transport Minister: “Whether it is for general traffic, direct public transport services, or moving freight, council considers increasing the speed limit of the motorway between Rolleston and Brougham St will assist in improving efficiency and connectivity while still being safe.” 

And he goes on to say: “This is reflected in generally higher average speeds above 100 kms per hour we already observe along the motorway.” 

So that’s the bit where he’s saying people break the rules anyway, so let’s change them. 

Since the Southern Motorway opened in 2020, five people have been seriously injured in crashes. There have been no fatal accidents. 

And the number of vehicles using the motorway is just going to increase. In 2021, there were 21,000 vehicles on the motorway daily. This is expected to jump to 33,000 by 2040. 

I’m not the only one who thinks it's a stupid idea to increase the speed limit. Transport expert Professor Simon Kingham —from the University of Canterbury— feels the same. Which, you might say, he would anyway, because Simon’s not big on speed. 

He’s probably not that big on vehicles, full stop, to be fair. But I agree with him on this one. 

Because he and I only see one outcome from increasing the speed limit to 120 kph on the Southern Motorway. More crashes and more severe crashes. 

Because if it’s 100 now and the Selwyn council is noticing that a lot of people are going faster than that, what do you think they’ll do if it’s 120? They’ll go even faster, won’t they? 

I remember a few weeks back, we were talking about restricting the engine size for young or new drivers, and there was no shortage of people saying you can drive a Demio

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Canterbury Morning's podcast with John McDonald
from News Talk ZB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
So, so that's time for a regular fortnit to catch up
with opposition leader Chris Hepkins. Morning, Chris, good morning.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
What kind of introduction was there? You just called me
one of the country's biggest the highest paficiary.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
No, no, no, no, no correction. I was just saying
that some people think that, and you're not the highest paid.
You're not the highest paid. That'd be the Prime minister,
wouldn't it.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Oh yeah, okay, well fear enough then all right then
you're you're.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
You're formerly the highest paid beneficiary in New Zealand. Is
that right?

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Okay, okay, right, yeah, I'm not sure that there isn't
making it any better, but okay.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Well you you made you made a thing about it. Eh.
You could have just kept still and we could have
just moved along and got on with the conversation about
about beneficiaries. Why is it that that you and the
Greens are saying, setting out expectations and consequences is waging
war on the poor? How can you defend that?

Speaker 3 (01:03):
Well, that's a that's a that's a Green phrase, not mine.
I mean is that.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Well, hold on, you study all right, You say you
have been saying it's beneficiary bashing. Why is it beneficiary bashing?

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Well, because ultimately, there's got to be jobs for these
people to go into. There's eighteen thousand fewer jobs now
than there were at the time of the last election.
And you know, if you're going to be you know,
take a harsher ligne on people getting into work, you've
got to make sure there are jobs for them to
go into. And at the moment, you know, look at
the jobs seeker statistics. You know, the number of applications
per job has been steadily increasing over the last eighteen

(01:39):
months to the point where now many of those beneficiaries
you know, applying for jobs are finding that they're not
even getting close to an interview or anything like that.
You've got to have jobs for people to go to
if you're going to use stick to get people off
the benefit. And at the moment, that's a pretty tough ask.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
What specific evidence or research can you point to emphasis
specific that shows that sanctions on beneficiaries don't work.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
Look at the facts around who goes on to a benefit.
The vast majority of people who are on a benefit
go off a benefit within six months or signing up
to a benefits. That's a fact. So sanctions don't make
any difference for those people.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
I'm asking. I'm asking. I'm asking because politicians have been
very quick to say in the last twenty four hours
or research shows they don't work. What's a piece of
research you can point to?

Speaker 3 (02:30):
So if you look at so, if you let me finish,
so susins don't really apply to that group of people,
because these are people who are very motivated to get
back into work, and that is the vast majority of
people who are on the wealthare system. So the people
who are longer term beneficiaries, the Welfare Expert Advisory Group
canvassed all of the research and evidence about three or

(02:50):
four years ago and found that to get those people
off work and off benefits and into work, sanctions didn't work,
and that actually there are other but there are things
that do work. And so I think you know, no
one is saying on our side of the aisle, I
can I expect for labor that we don't want people
off benefits and into work. We absolutely do. We just

(03:11):
want to make sure that the things the government's doing
is actually going to achieve that.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
What do you make of David Simol saying today that
the government should go harder and should also play sanctions
against women who get pregnant while they're on a benefit.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
Well, ultimately it'll just result in more kids living in
hardship and markeids living in poverty. And will you pay
a consequence for that as a country in the longer term?
Kids growing up in poverty creates a whole host of
issues that ultimately we, the taxpayer of the public, ends
up paying for in the longer term. So I just
think it's the sort of short sighted, you know, political

(03:47):
rhetoric that doesn't actually move things forward. So we want
to get people off benefits and into work, and I
think where that's exactly what we should be focused on.
We need to look at what are the things that
are stopping that from happening at the moment. In many cases,
it's very low skill levels amongst the people who have
been on benefits for a very long time. So let's
get them into some meaningful training programs to give them
employable skills. Let's make sure that the barriers like childcare,

(04:11):
for example, which stop people, which make it more difficult
for people to get off benefits and let's take care
of that to make sure that there's childcare available for them.
These are the things that will actually get people into
work and sustaining work over a belonger term.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
How come we didn't all of those things when you
had the chance over sixty period, Well.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
We did quite a lot of them. I mean, we've
reinstated the training incentive allowed that was making a difference
in getting people into sustainable long term employment. I think
there's still more to do in the childcare space though.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
This morning on the Shide we've been discussing Selom Mayor
Sam Broughton's suggestion to the government that the speed limit
on the christ Church Southern Motorway between Roliston and christ
Church be increased from one hundred to one hundred and twenty.
What's your position on that kind of speed limit level?

Speaker 3 (04:56):
One hundred and twenty things like quite a high speed limit.
I know that Bocokote have been increasing the speed limit
to one hundred and ten on some of the newer
expressways and motorways that have being built, and that seems
like a fairly safe speed limit. I've driven many of
those roads and one hundred and ten seems like a
pretty safe speed But ultimately I think it's up to
you know, Wakakota to make the right decisions on what

(05:18):
a safe speed limit is for the individual road concerned.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
If you were the government doing this consultation, would you
consider one hundred and twenty safe? Though? What would you say?

Speaker 1 (05:25):
Now?

Speaker 2 (05:26):
Forget about it?

Speaker 3 (05:27):
I'd want to see what the evidence or then when,
what the advice is around what the imfectors that would
be on safety. You know, I think we've got to
get a balance here. We've got to make sure that yep.
But you know, if the roads can safely be driven
at one hundred and ten, then it's fine. But if
you know, if what's the difference between one hundred and
ten and one hundred and twenty in terms of potential
fatalities and accidents and so on, I'd want to see
some information about that.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
Why do you think retail crime has continued to increase
this year?

Speaker 3 (05:54):
Well, because tough talk doesn't actually deter a retail crime.
I think the current government of finding that out. You
can talk tough on crime, but it doesn't actually change anything.
We've got to deal with the underlying causes of crime,
in particular, you know, there are some pretty deep seated
issues that we have to grapple with here. Issues around
poverty and inequality is certainly one of the factors that
drives crime. Issues around domestic and family violence where we've

(06:17):
seen police drawing away from their involvement in those areas.
Many of the people who can violent crime with themselves
subjects to family harm i e. Violent in the home.
There's no nice, easy packageable bumper stick of slogans that
are going to solve this problem. It's going to require
quite a concerted effort.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
Were you saying there that the police are doing the
wrong thing not being as involved in mental health and
family harm callouts?

Speaker 3 (06:46):
Absolutely, because at the moment the mental health system isn't
geared up to cope with the increased demand that it's
going to get with police stepping back from that. Now,
in principle, the idea of a lesser police involvement and
more of a health focus when it comes to particularly
mental health, I'm absolutely on board with that, but you've

(07:07):
got to make sure you've got the health approach lined
up before the police step back from that. In terms
of family harm incidence, if you look at the flow
on effects of family harm and the sense that you know,
it is a contributor to the level of violent crime
we see in the border community. I absolutely would be
concerned to see police stepping back from that.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
What was your look at this ge situation? Now? On
the government announcing yesterday that the ban on ge crops
outside the lab is going to be a history by
next year, what did your party Science spokeswoman Deborah Russell
mean when she said the change was new territory for
New Zealand and urged the government to show quite transparency.
Another quote, she says, we've already seen national go too

(07:47):
far and too fast and make mistakes. What was she
getting at there?

Speaker 3 (07:51):
I mean, there's plenty of areas where they've gone too far,
too fast, in other areas such as such another area
such as look at this the cuts they made to
the disability community, which they've subsequently the minister's absolutely lost
their job on.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
Okay, all right, that's one that's issues.

Speaker 3 (08:07):
Look at the issues around fast Track concenter.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
Yeah, yeah, okay, all right, this is of course I
just checked. I just checking that you could justify what
you were saying, which is good, you know, but I
just want to check what's your position on genetically engineered crops.

Speaker 3 (08:23):
I think we should proceed with caution. So I'm certainly
open to the debate, and let's see what the government
comes up with in gyms of you know what protections
they put around there. But I think they're right. The
science has moved on a lot in the last twenty
five years, and I do think we can't be blind
to opportunities for New Zealand here, so we need to
make sure we've got some, you know, some good safeguards though,

(08:45):
because ye at the moment, a lot of our exporters
trade on a GE free label and we don't want
to We don't want to destroy their market access by
compromising that. But there are opportunities that we should still
be looking to explore. And so my my positions we
should proceed with caution. So let's see how the government
do that.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
Will you be happy to eat food made from genetically
engineered crops.

Speaker 3 (09:10):
Or what do we already do? I mean, if you
could travel overseas, you already will be doing that, so
you know that that happens now. I think it depends
on the nature of the genetic engineering.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Let's talking a fortnite Thanks for your time, cheers.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
For more from Category Mornings with John McDonald, Listen live
to news talks A'd Be Christ Church from nine am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio