Brooke van Velden: Workplace Relations Minister on early end to the road cone tipline, its findings

The Government maintains its road cone hotline has been worthwhile. 

The pilot, which encouraged the public to report excessive cone use, ends tomorrow, six months ahead of schedule. 

Site visits found 86% of work sites were already compliant. 

Workplace Relations Minister Brooke Van Velden told Heather du Plessis-Allan the hotline has found there are issues with the traffic management plans councils design. 

She says the people on the ground putting the cones out aren't the problem. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Government has finally killed its road cone hotline, which despite
the name, actually wasn't a hotline at all. As of September,
about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars had been spent
on it, works out at about one hundred and thirty
six dollars per complaint and ninety three percent of the
road cones were actually within the rules. Brook van Velden
is the Minister for Workplace Relations in Safety and with
us Morning Brook.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Good morning here.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Why'd you kill it?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, after six months we had six months of data
and it was pretty clear what the data was coming
back with, which was that, you know, even though there
weren't people on the ground putting out excessive use of
road cones, eighty six percent of them were compliant with
council approved temporary traffic management plans, which really pointed the

(00:43):
finger the fact that the council have excessive use with
their plans. And so after having such consistent data month
on month, we decided, you know what, we don't need
another six months. Let's save some money from here. But
it also shows that the work that we've got underway
with NZTA, having councils complying with new NZTA guidance by

(01:06):
next year is really where the problem lies, that the
Council's signing off on having too many cones in the
first place.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Okay, you seriously telling me that you didn't realize that
it was the traffic management plans until you did the
tip line.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Well, I think there's two things here here that you know. Firstly,
when I did my Health and Safety road Code Half
and Safety road show last year, road cones were the
number one issue on people's mind. Was just so much frustration,
and so having this tip line has allowed for people
to have a bit of an outlet or a voice.

(01:42):
But secondly to that, it has actually been quite useful
because what it has shown is that it's not you know,
the people on the ground wearing ppe putting out the
cones who are just doing too much, which was one
potential outcome. It's actually that they were doing their job
very correctly the plans that the council was.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
What I'm saying, I know, but what I'm saying to
you is you didn't need the tip line to tell
you that because you already knew that, right, because Bush's
office already knew that. So so what we've got at
the moment is we've got the old traffic rules traffic
management rules, and we've got the new traffic management rules.
The old ones were the ones where there were so
many road cones. The new ones have fewer road cones.
The problem seems to be the councils aren't all switching

(02:20):
yet to the new ones. Do you have any idea
how many councils are still on the old ones.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
I'm sure I can probably get you that data. I
don't have that in front of me, But the hope
here is that they will do. We know that they
haven't yet gone up to play with all of them.
But of course you know you do want risk based
proportionate at traffic management. Let's not be all fixated on,
you know, putting out cones every two meters, bang bang bang,

(02:46):
there they go. Let's actually deal with the problem that
you're seeing on the ground and whether or not the
cones are actually going to make it any more safer
for people working now they're just there.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
What I can't quite get a grip on is how
much do the new rules reduced the proportion of cones
that are being laid out by.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Well, I'm not an expert in the specific new temporary
traffic management system. That is the role of n z TA.
But I'm sure we can. We can come and find
you that. But my understanding is that for the councils
that have already reduced their cone use, it has saved
them millions of dollars, but we can always follow up

(03:26):
with it.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Are there fewer cones? Because I mean, this is the like,
this is the absolute nub of the issue, isn't it Brook.
It's that you guys had rules that made too many cones.
Now we've got rules that lay out fewer cones, but
we don't know how many fewer.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Will that to come out, and that will come out
in the future, Like I say, the government's rules requiring
or n z ta's rules requiring councils to follow the
new guidance doesn't come in until next year, so that
information is in. Sorry, twenty twenty seven.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Have you been on the turps last night or something?
I'm only teasing you. I know there was a very
big party that was going on. Did you go to
the Press Gallery party?

Speaker 2 (04:12):
I did go to the press Gallery party, but I
only was.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
It good from you as you should.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Now.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
My problem with the press Gallery party is it always
turns into something like a scarfy affair. But I'm told
it was a bit more classy. They were aiming for
something a bit more classy this year. Did they manage
to deliver?

Speaker 2 (04:28):
Oh? I think it was a great amount of fun.
You know. I saw a whole bunch of people who
were there. Was there a jazz banding off? There was
a jazz band. Okay, So I think you know, the
press gallery party did a fabulous job.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
They tried a little harder. Yeah, Brook, thank you.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
It hadn't been a long year for them, so so
thank you to all the media.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
Yeah, I'm sorry to tell you this, Brook, but you're
going to have to work harder on the road cone thing.
I'm not convinced at all that this is solved. Thank
you for your time, though, Brook van Velden, Minister for
Workplace Relations and Safety. Listen, if you drive around and
see too many road cones, it may well be because
the new role that require fewer road cones still require
too many road cones. So we may be right back.
But who would know, Minister doesn't know. For more from

(05:07):
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Speaker 2 (05:10):
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