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Speaker 1: Now to another car related controversy, because that's not enough

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Speaker 1: road cones. The government's done some digging and it's revealed

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Speaker 1: today that MZTA has spent in just three years almost

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Speaker 1: eight hundred million dollars on road cones and temporary traffic management.

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Speaker 1: Now the guy who did the digging is the Transport Minister,

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Speaker 1: Simeon Brown. Hey, Simeon, how are you?

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Speaker 2: Heather?

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Speaker 1: Very well? Thank you, Siman. Before we get into the

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Speaker 1: road cones and stuff, did you know that you can't

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Speaker 1: park in your own driveway?

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Speaker 2: The rule is clear that you can't block a driveway,

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Speaker 2: but ultimately, you know what I'd say to Auckland Transport

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Speaker 2: here is there needs to be some discretion. Ultimately, if

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Speaker 2: you're blocking a foot path to someone in a pram

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Speaker 2: or a wheelchair can't get past, that's one thing. But

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Speaker 2: if someone's trying to park their car to be able

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Speaker 2: to act, you know, you know, have their car parked

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Speaker 2: outside the house, it's a different thing. So their discretion

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Speaker 2: is up the wazoo and that's something which i'd be

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Speaker 2: encouraging them to think about.

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Speaker 1: Okay, I appreciate that, but do they actually have to

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Speaker 1: listen to you or are they just like powers into themselves.

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Speaker 2: Well, ultimately the imp rule which allows them to which

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Speaker 2: is clear you can't block a driveway. But the reality

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Speaker 2: here is this is about discretion. And I think for

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Speaker 2: most fear minded Aucklanders who are looking at this and saying, yes,

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Speaker 2: if the car is blocking the footpath and stopping someone

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Speaker 2: in the wheelchair getting down it, if that's a problem.

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Speaker 2: If it's not and it's the person where they're just

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Speaker 2: entering their property, that something completely different and the foot

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Speaker 2: path is clear. So it comes down to discretion and

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Speaker 2: the enforcement officers are able to use their discretion in

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Speaker 2: their circumstances.

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Speaker 1: Are you telling them Simi and right now as the

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Speaker 1: Transport Minister, to use their discretion and stop finding people

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Speaker 1: parking in their own driveways?

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Speaker 2: Well, I think my message has been consistent. I want

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Speaker 2: a common sense approach when it comes to transport issues,

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Speaker 2: and I think that's what most fear minded right want.

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Speaker 2: They want a common sense approach. I can't tell all

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Speaker 2: of them Transports, as a road controlling authority or any

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Speaker 2: other road controlling authorities what to do. They are the

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Speaker 2: road controlling authority and Auckland. Obviously there's an issue in

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Speaker 2: terms of whether or not. There needs to be more

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Speaker 2: democratic accountability and I'm all form of democratic accountability of

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Speaker 2: these issues, and I'm working with Wayne Brown on that.

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Speaker 1: Are you going to get will you help them to

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Speaker 1: get rid of AT?

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Speaker 2: I'm working through the options around that. What I'm committed

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Speaker 2: to is democratic accountability of transport decisions. There's a range

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Speaker 2: of ways in which that can be implemented, but the

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Speaker 2: outcome that we've agreed and we're committed to is democratic

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Speaker 2: accountability of these decisions.

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Speaker 1: Good love it defund AT now on the road cones.

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Speaker 1: This is mind blowing this number, isn't it?

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Speaker 2: Oh, it's significant. Ultimately, when I became the Minister of Transport,

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Speaker 2: I said to MZTA how much have you been spending

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Speaker 2: on trafford management temperatuire management? And they said, we don't

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Speaker 2: know because we don't record it, and so we required

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Speaker 2: them to record it recorded. We found that it's been

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Speaker 2: almost eight hundred million dollars in the last three years,

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Speaker 2: which is an exorbitant amount of money. Ultimately, we need

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Speaker 2: to see this come down. We need to see a

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Speaker 2: much more efficient use of taxpayers money when it comes

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Speaker 2: to you know, maintaining our roads and keeping roadworkers safe.

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Speaker 2: We have to get that balance right and that's all

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Speaker 2: we're working with nz T AD to deliver.

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Speaker 1: Now, am I right in thinking what we're talking about?

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Speaker 1: This nearly eight hundred million dollars yere This is just NZTA.

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Speaker 1: This doesn't include whatever the councils have also spent.

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Speaker 2: Correct, So this is only the New Zealand Transport Agency.

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Speaker 2: This doesn't include what transport or councils across the country are,

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Speaker 2: doesn't include what are authorities like what a care, doesn't

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Speaker 2: include electricity lines, companies or corus who do telecommunications. So

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Speaker 2: this is only New Zealand and ZTA. So NZTA is

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Speaker 2: rolling out a new risk based approach to traffic management

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Speaker 2: that that is going to take time, but we've already

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Speaker 2: started implementing that into new construction contracts and they will

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Speaker 2: be implementing that into all new maintenance contracts. We are

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Speaker 2: seeing in the first quarterly report a reduction in the

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Speaker 2: amount of money being spent on temporary traffic management down

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Speaker 2: from about I think fifteen percent of total costs for

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Speaker 2: maintenance and operations to about ten percent. So we are

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Speaker 2: seeing those benefits starting to flow through. But I've been

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Speaker 2: very clear we need to keep that deal because I

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Speaker 2: want to see retingle dollar being maximized so we can

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Speaker 2: get more roads built and more roads maintained, because that's

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Speaker 2: what taxpayers expect.

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Speaker 1: Brilliant stuff. So me and listen, thank you very much,

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Speaker 1: really appreciate it, Simmy and Brown Transport Minister A Auckland

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Speaker 1: Transports being told, hey, how good is that? For more

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Speaker 1: from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to news talks

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Speaker 1: it'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast

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Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio