-
Source: ONE News -
Watch Video
-
Related
Road safety funding will be slashed back by tens of million of dollars as the government moves to pump money into the state highway network.
Critics are accusing the government of compromising safety and say the money is vital if more motorists are going to be using the roads.
On Monday, the government trumpeted a billion extra dollars for new state highways, but not the fact that road safety funding will be cut back to help pay for it.
Over the next three years, National will spend $50 million less than Labour had planned for traffic policing - an area covering crash investigations, traffic management and clamping down on speeding and drink driving.
"We are not reducing any aspect of road policing, we are just saying it won't increase at the same rate as Labour was proposing, instead we're putting more into road engineering," says Transport Minister Steven Joyce.
Labour had planned for $950 million to be spent on road policing over the next three years but National will slash that back to $900 million.
"More money into roading, more cars on the road, less policing, less safety, more accidents, more New Zealanders losing their lives, it doesn't make sense," says Labour leader Phill Goff.
Road safety campaigners argue that more money for road safety has meant fewer road deaths.
In 1999, 729 people died on the roads, five years ago it was 435 and last year the road toll was down to 366.
"You can't have a cop on every corner, so you need to balance that and we're saying road policing has needed to grow, it does need to grow, but not perhaps as much and we can invest more in the development of the road infrastructure," says Joyce.
The government isn't budging, saying better quality roads mean safer roads.
