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Dear John, Local Body Election Results 2022I am very pleased to congratulate our new Mayor of Auckland Wayne Brown on his convincing win in the local body elections last week. It is great to see that Daniel Newman and Angela Dalton have been re-elected as Councillors for the Manurewa-Papakura Ward and the Papakura Action Team headed by Brent Catchpole and Jan Robinson have been re-elected to the Papakura Local Board. Their running mates Felicity Auva’a, George Hawkins, Andrew Webster and Kevin Hieatt were elected too. Congratulations to all of you. My congratulations to Andy Baker who has been involved in the Franklin area for many years and has now been elected as the new Councillor for Franklin following Bill Cashmore’s retirement after two terms. The returning and new members of the Franklin Local Board are also to be congratulated. They are for Wairoa- Malcolm Bell, Angela Fulljames, Amanda Hopkins, for Pukekohe- Alan Cole, Logan Soole, Andrew Kay and Amanda Kinzett and for Waiuku- Sharlene Druyven and Gary Holmes. Congratulations to all and best wishes for your work in this important area of local government. I would like to acknowledge everyone who stood as a candidate in the local body elections as it is a brave thing to do but it is certainly a necessary thing for our continued good governance and democracy in New Zealand. A National-led government will work with local government to deliver first class infrastructure like safe, effective roads and sensible transport alternatives, suitable, sensitive housing projects and the maintenance of local control of the assets around fresh water that rate payers have paid for over many years. National launches Pothole of the Week campaignAnyone driving on the roads around New Zealand will be aware of the appalling state of our roads. There are literally potholes everywhere. The National Opposition’s spokesperson Simeon Brown has launched a Pothole of the Week campaign to encourage the public to send in pictures of potholes in their community. We want Transport Minister Michael Wood the get the message and sort the issue out with both funding and action, now. Potholes damage vehicles, and cause danger and accidents for motorists. We’re hearing from people all over New Zealand, every day, who say the roads are the worst they’ve ever seen them. Our transport spokesperson wants Kiwis to sign the National Opposition petition and send pictures of the potholes plaguing their community to the National Party facebook page so that the Transport Minister can see just how bad things are. Please only take photos of potholes if and when it is safe to do so. Fixing our roads in particular the potholes is more important than New Zealand Transport spending on:-
You can sign National’s petition at national.org.nz/fixthepotholes and send in your photos of potholes in your community via the National Party Facebook page. To further slow and impede the flow of private car traffic (and also bus traffic), Auckland Transport (AT’s) has decided to reduce speed limits on more than 1600 roads around Auckland, including many busy arterial roads. Already road congestion issues in Auckland hinder the ability of people to get around and get things done, costing the city’s economy around $1.3 billion a year and this a major impact on Auckland’s productivity and cost of living. AT are happy to announce that the previous round of speed limit changes in 2020 have reduced accident statistics but they conveniently fail to factor in the effect of the Level 3 and 4 Covid lockdowns that Auckland endured in 2020 and 2021, in the numbers. The National Opposition spokesperson for transport says that speed limit reductions should be focused on high-risk areas and roads. There is little evidence to suggest that across-the-board speed reductions will make any real difference when other things like driver inattention or inexperience or traffic congestion and poor road maintenance are factors in accidents that are just as significant. All of us support temporary speed limit reductions to 40 kmph around schools during pick up and drop off times, but on most local roads, measures like this simply slow people down and cause traffic jams. In reality speed limit reductions are being forced onto local road control authorities by a Labour Government intent on slowing people down when they should be investing in quality long lasting repairs to roads, putting median barriers on State Highways especially all of SH1 and four lane-ing roads like Mill Road. Stay safe and best wishes to you all for the Labour Day holiday on
the 24th, Hon Judith
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