The ACT Party is calling for more private partnerships to help fix New Zealand's pothole crisis that has seen Kiwis pay thousands for damaged vehicles, which David Seymour believes is "pathetic".
It comes after the National Party announced it would allocate $500 million to a "pothole repair fund" to address the "shocking state" of New Zealand's transport network if elected in October.
ACT leader Seymour told AM on Monday he understood why National announced its policy but believes there are issues with it.
He told co-host Lloyd Burr Kiwis are fed up with the state of New Zealand's roads.
"People are very upset about potholes, as am I. I know people that have had to pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars due to damage from potholes, they're dangerous and it's just pathetic. "So I can understand why National would say, 'Here's a problem, let's throw some money at it,'" he said.
But Seymour believes simply filling potholes with money isn't the answer to the problem.
"The issues around how the contracting is done, that that is wrong, the way the accountability is done for the people doing the maintenance is wrong," he said.
"I think we can do a lot more public-private partnerships. I think there are much better ways to fund and maintain roads than what we do now."
Seymour also pointed to the number of orange road cones around New Zealand, which he said is causing the cost of maintenance to increase.
"One of the biggest growth industries in the last five years has actually been temporary traffic management plans. I think we've overdone that and made it more expensive to do maintenance.
"I'm not sure throwing money at every problem is the solution. I think there might be some hard technical work that really needs to be done and that's where ACT comes from."
Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick, appearing alongside Seymour as part of their weekly political panel, told AM she agreed there are issues around the procurement process.
But Swarbrick disagreed with having more partnerships in the private sector, believing this leads to it becoming more expensive.
"I disagree on the point about farming it out to the private sector because we do see when there's a middle-man clipping the ticket, it becomes ultimately more expensive in the long run," she said. "I absolutely resonate with the frustration that many New Zealanders have about the maintenance of our roads but we also know that this is happening in the context of approximately $200 billion infrastructural investment for the last 30 years and the 30 years into the future.
"So we're not going to fix these issues in these broader contexts without also looking into how we can ensure that we are funding the public good properly and honestly that comes down to a fair tax system."
New Zealand's pothole crisis has been a hot topic in recent months. Last year, NZTA received a record number of complaints about damaged vehicles caused by potholes.
Labour transport spokesperson David Parker told AM on Monday it was the National Party when it was in Government that froze the road maintenance budget.
"There weren't enough road re-surfacings done and, when you don't resurface roads, it gets dishes from the heavy vehicles, that holds water, the water gets into the road, the road cracks up and you get massive lots of potholes."
He said the Labour Government is now dealing "with that catch-up". He said road resurfacing is now being undertaken at a greater rate than is needed.
"Under the last Government, under their funding freeze, they were doing the renewals at half the rate that was required."
But AA road safety spokesperson Dylan Thomsen said National's announcement is a "really good signal" after the association has spent years of campaigning for more spending on New Zealand's roads.
"We have not been investing enough as a country into road maintenance and our road network has been deteriorating because of it."
Watch the full interview with David Seymour and Chlöe Swarbrick in the video above.
