National has launched a "Pothole of the Week" campaign aimed at getting Kiwis to send in photos of potholes from around the country to show the poor state of New Zealand's roads.
Party Transport spokesperson Simeon Brown launched the campaign on Sunday and said the pictures Kiwis send in of potholes in their community will be so Transport Minister Michael Wood hears their frustrations loud and clear.
"Kiwis are sick and tired of all the potholes peppering New Zealand's roads which are damaging vehicles and causing havoc for motorists. We're hearing from people every day who say the roads are the worst they’ve ever seen them," Brown said.
Brown is urging Kiwis to sign the petition and send in the potholes plaguing their communities so the Transport Minister can see just how bad things are.
"Each week, we will highlight the worst pothole, with the aim of getting the Government to sort the issue," Brown said.
"Aside from causing damage to cars, potholes are a safety hazard and that’s why they need to be fixed. So it goes without saying that people should only take photos of potholes if and when it is safe to do so."
Brown accused Labour of being too focused on its "pet projects".
"People in Tauranga and Rodney have taken to repairing the potholes themselves rather than waiting around for NZTA or local authorities to fix them."
Brown said Wood needs to "stop wasting money on his pet projects and get the potholes fixed".
"People can sign National’s petition at national.org.nz/fixthepotholes and send in their photos of potholes in their community via the National Party Facebook page."
New Zealand's roads have been under the microscope this year with Kiwis slamming the state of the country's transport network.
One motorist, Zane Greig, has been regularly driving from Auckland to New Plymouth for the past 10 years but said he has never seen the roads this bad. He said he was dodging numerous potholes on the road.
In August, Central Tyre and Automotive manager Ryan Merson told AM his Taranaki garage fixed between 30 and 40 cars on a single Friday with rims and tyres wrecked by potholes in the region.
And he's not alone. The AA told Newshub New Zealand's roads are underfunded and in a terrible state.
"Our roads are in the worst condition that many people have ever seen. There is a range of factors playing a part in that but the biggest one is that there hasn’t been enough investment going into road repairs and maintenance for many years," AA road safety spokesperson Dylan Thomsen said.
Wood was on AM on Friday for the regular political panel and said a reason for the poor state of New Zealand's was because of National's lack of spending on maintenance when they were last in power.
"We've completed significant [roads] like the Waikato Expressway which comes through to Cambridge. The reality across our land transport system is we have a lot of pressures in terms of the investments we got to make," Wood said.
"National put some of those roads of national significance money in, the way that they did that was to run down the maintenance spending, which is now creating issues on the rest of the network."
