The National Party says the Labour Government is planning to slash speed limits on State Highways across New Zealand.

Maps provided to the National Party reveal that the Government has marked almost the entire state highway network as not having a ‘safe and appropriate speed’.

“Meaning its speed limit is potentially going to be slashed under Labour’s plans to slow New Zealanders down,” said National’s transport spokesperson Simeon Brown.

“No one knows which state highway will be on the chopping block, but Labour needs to be upfront with Kiwis about their intentions,” he said.

“Getting around New Zealand in a safe and efficient way is critically important to all New Zealanders, and in particular our rural communities and those who transport freight around New Zealand”.

Brown said blanket speed limits will “simply just mean it will take longer to get around New Zealand, make our rural communities more isolated and will do nothing to address the poor state of our State Highways, which have become peppered with potholes”.

“This is a short-sighted, quick-fix attempt to address the problem of road safety which is overly simplistic and doesn’t deal with the underlying issues,” he said.

“There are a range of factors which can improve safety on our roads, but simply imposing blanket speed limit reductions across the entire network will not fix these problems.

“National opposes blanket speed limit reductions,” said Brown.

“The Government’s priority should be to maintain our highways to a safe standard and to ensure that the road rules are being appropriately enforced.”