Land Transport Amendment Bill

I move, That the Land Transport Amendment Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I will move that the bill be referred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, and that the committee have the authority to meet to examine the bill at any time while the House is sitting, except during questions for oral answer and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House; and to meet on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, notwithstanding Standing Orders 191 and 194(1)(b) and (c).

This Government has a commitment to improving the safety and security of all road users. This bill does that by making the enforcement, operation, and administration of land transport safety law more efficient and effective, in line with the objectives of the Government’s New Zealand Transport Strategy and the Road Safety to 2010 strategy. The bill improves the law concerning the responsibilities of road users, traffic offences and penalties, and driver licensing, and fixes some provisions that are unclear, inflexible, unenforceable, or outdated.

Although the road toll of 404 in 2002 was the lowest for 40 years, the toll last year was 460, and there have been only slightly fewer road deaths so far this year than at the same stage in 2003. Clearly, with increased traffic volumes we need new initiatives to improve road safety. Alcohol and excessive speed are the two biggest contributing factors to road crashes in New Zealand, together accounting for about 40 percent of all fatal crashes. This bill gets tough on the most serious traffic offenders by reducing the speed and alcohol thresholds for immediate driver’s-licence suspension, and increasing the range of penalties for repeat drink-driving, including immediate vehicle impoundment. It also requires a wider group of repeat drink-drivers to attend a drug and alcohol assessment centre, in order to help rehabilitate more drivers whose offending is rooted in a drinking problem.

The bill will make the law around driver licensing clearer and more user-friendly. For example, it allows a temporary driver’s licence to be issued where a person’s licence has expired or been revoked, thus enabling a person to drive for assessment purposes. It requires a photo driver’s licence to show the original issue date rather than the date that the licence was last issued, and that will help New Zealand drivers wanting to drive or hire a car in other countries. It allows for the suspension of a driving instructor or testing officer in the interests of public safety, and it prohibits driving instruction for financial or commercial gain without a current driving instructor endorsement.

The bill enhances the ability of courts to deal with people who repeatedly drive while disqualified. Most people convicted of driving while disqualified are recidivists. Many of them build up so many disqualifications that they see no hope of ever regaining their drivers’ licences. They continue to drive and build up further disqualifications. In cases where those offenders present no risk to road safety, the bill will allow courts to impose a community-based sentence, rather than further disqualification, for driving while disqualified. It also enables offenders who have already accumulated long periods of unserved disqualification for disqualified driving to return to court to request a reduction in their outstanding disqualifications on the ground that they can demonstrate to the court that they have attempted to change their behaviour.

The bill contains amendments to transport operator licensing, in line with the conclusions of a review of the licensing system in 2001. It simplifies and clarifies licensing requirements, and that will reduce compliance costs for transport operators. The bill also introduces measures to improve commercial drivers’ standards, enhance the accountability of taxi organisations, and strengthen offences and penalties. It prohibits anyone convicted of a serious violent or sexual offence from being a passenger service driver.

Following consultation with the transport industry and the general public, and in line with a review of the driving hours and logbook system, the bill simplifies that system and introduces a new, simpler definition of work time. It also alters the penalty system, in line with industry concerns, to graduate penalties according to the seriousness of the offence. It increases the use of infringement notices and demerit points for logbook and other record-keeping offences. It retains mandatory licence disqualification for driving-hour breaches of more than 1 hour only. It introduces a new “chain of responsibility” offence to ensure that employers and other industry participants are held accountable if they knowingly allow or cause driving-hour breaches, and it provides for alternative fatigue-management schemes to encourage operators to take greater responsibility.

The bill amends provisions concerning vehicles impounded under the Land Transport Act. It reduces the period that storage providers must wait before applying to dispose of an unclaimed vehicle from 28 days to 10 days. That will reduce the cost to storage providers of holding vehicles that are, often, not roadworthy and of little value.

Finally, the bill contains a number of common-sense amendments to fix various defects in land transport legislation that make it more difficult to enforce or administer. These include making the criteria for appointments to the Land Transport Safety Authority board consistent with the Human Rights Act, so that appointees do not have to be New Zealand citizens; preventing the taking of a blood sample at the request of an enforcement officer where that would be prejudicial to the treatment of the patient; permitting the release of driver’s-licence photographs of deceased persons to their next of kin; empowering police to serve at the roadside a notice of licence suspension on a driver with more than 100 demerit points; clarifying the obligations of a driver who is requested to stop by an enforcement officer; ensuring that driving offences involving injury or death apply both on and off a road; creating an offence of failure to report an accident; enabling rental service operators to charge fees for owner-liability offences back to the person hiring the vehicle at the time; and providing an alternative to full vehicle re-inspection when vehicles are ordered off the road for non-compliance with vehicle standards.

In addition, the Greens have raised with me the issue of a lack of distinction, in terms of offence and penalty, between persons driving on an expired licence and those who drive without any licence. Their suggestion is that it may be appropriate to have a lesser penalty for driving on an expired licence, on the basis that forgetting to renew one’s licence is not as serious an offence as driving whilst never having had one. Currently, the bill contains a provision that states that “unlicensed”, in relation to a driver, includes holding an expired licence. However, the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee may choose to examine whether the present lack of distinction is fair and make any recommendations it feels are appropriate.

Lastly, I have had the matter of excessive vehicle noise raised with me by Larry Baldock. Should the select committee examining this bill consider it appropriate, it may wish to examine whether the current offence regime for dealing with excessive vehicle noise, including stereo noise, is acting as a sufficient deterrent. If not, the committee may wish to examine what penalties would be suitable for such offences, particularly repeat offences. Although the bill does not address that issue directly, it has now been just over a year since the House passed provisions to deal with boy racers, and it may be time to examine whether future measures to deal with the related issue of excessive noise are needed.

In conclusion, I would like to acknowledge the support from the Greens, United Future, and New Zealand First for the bill as introduced. The bill proposes a large number of positive changes to the legislative framework underpinning land transport safety. It will improve safety and help save lives. It will also reduce unnecessary complication and business compliance costs. I commend it to the House.

At the outset of what will be a fairly short speech, I want to say to the House that the National Party will be voting for this bill to go to a select committee. The bill needs a considerable amount of work, and the National Party is prepared to work with the Government on some of the important issues of road safety. Like all political parties in this House, we view with concern the road toll. It came down considerably during the previous National Government’s time in office, largely due to a combination of a very aggressive advertising campaign on television—at times it was almost too aggressive—and the moves that took place around the issuing of the new photographic licences and that whole new regime of removing people from the road. We believe that that was highly successful in driving down the road toll. That is not to say that there are not other things that can be done, and I particularly want to commend in the bill the provisions around serious traffic offenders, whereby there will be the opportunity for immediate driver’s-licence suspension and an increase in penalties for repeat drink-driving.

I am not someone who believes we need to race out and lower the blood-alcohol level, or do any of that sort of more extreme stuff. But as someone who often reads the little bit in the paper on drink-driving offences, which are reported on a weekly basis, when I read the convictions I am concerned to see a number of repeat offenders who consistently appear, week after week, in the newspaper. I think that anything this House can do to stop repeat offending by the removal of drivers’ licences earlier in the process is something that should be supported, and I also think the requirement for a wider group of repeat drink-drivers to have to attend drug and alcohol assessment and rehabilitation courses is something we need to have. It is no good just to take their drivers’ licences away—suspend them—and then let those drivers come back at a later date. We do need a more intensive programme, and they should have to prove they have been on the programme before they get their licences back. I personally support that part of the bill, and I hope the House will support it, as well.

In terms of the simplification around the driving logbook system, I think it does go some way towards meeting the concerns that have been expressed to me regarding logbooks. I am worried about the increase, or the ability, I guess, to have automatic demerit points for a logbook offence, because I think the issue is that many people may well be outside their driving time when it is not a planned event. I am thinking of the recent example of the floods in the northern part of the Ōtaki and through the Rangitīkei areas, where truck-drivers who were doing really good community work in terms of moving stock and furniture—and they were moving furniture in the Hutt Valley, which was also flooded at the same time—were pinged by the quite petty and frankly, I think, overzealous actions of some traffic police for weight and logbook offences. Common sense prevailed in the end, and those offences were waived. But I do worry about the increasing focus on revenue gathering, and logbook offences are one way that that whole issue can be used by the traffic police. I do not support that.

Vehicle impoundment is another issue I want to comment on, because it was quite controversial when it was introduced in the House in the late 1990s, and I am sure the Minister was aware of the debate at the time. In fact, I think it was difficult at the time to keep a certain number of members in the House in order to get that part passed. It was a very close vote, and I notice the Hon Harry Duynhoven laughing at that as well, because I think he was involved in the negotiations at the time. Suffice it to say that vehicle impoundment has worked really well, and I think the Minister is right to ask the committee to look at reducing the time cars are kept. I know that that is a problem; it has been raised with me. Where vehicles have no value or very little value, no one comes to pick them up. They then end up being kept for a long period of time, and the operators who have those vehicles in their yards end up wearing a loss. So from that angle, we need to sort that out.

As an aside, I just hope the committee also takes the chance to look at abandoned vehicles. I notice an increasing number of people around the country who have vehicles of little value, and I am not sure whether those things just break down or the owners forget where they are, but one way or the other, the owners just leave them there on the roadside. Traffic officers drive past those vehicles for a week to two weeks, and the vehicles gradually lose bits. If one goes past such a vehicle on a Friday, one sees it is all OK. However, on Saturday one sees the windows are broken, on Sunday the wheels have gone, and by Wednesday it is sitting there as a wrecked vehicle on the side of the road. That is not something that does this country proud. The police need to act on that situation a lot quicker than they do, and I hope the committee will look at that. I think that it is probably just a product of the value of a vehicle, when it is probably not worth the towing fee. I myself have had a car in that category, and I have very fond memories of it.

💬 Darren Hughes: Tell us about it.

It is still on the road, actually. I sold it for $300, and it is still being driven by a very proud seventh former.

I want to finish by saying that the issues around taking blood samples and some of the human rights issues around dealing with blood samples and breath testing are things we will want to look at quite closely. I am sure there will be varying views in our caucus on those issues, but I am pleased to say that the National Party will be supporting the referral of the bill to the select committee and will work in a constructive way to get it through the House as soon as possible.

Towards the end of the week it is becoming a transport week; transport is becoming the flavour of the week. I can see Harry Duynhoven smiling, over there. Last night the Minister made an announcement on new funding for infrastructure, and today there is the Land Transport Amendment Bill.

I turn to the announcement last night on funding. I have to say to my colleagues in United Future that if they want to put out press releases that attack the Rt Hon Winston Peters and me personally, I would advise them to stick closer to the truth, because we are a little bit tetchy over here at the moment. We will not respond in kind, but those United Future members should stick to the truth.

I return to this bill. I think much has been said about it and New Zealand First will not add a great deal more, but I want to raise a few concerns we have and I think this bill will give us the opportunity to look at them more closely.

The driver’s licence system concerns us, and I see in the bill some areas that specifically address our concerns. I am hopeful that the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee will look at the concerns elderly drivers have. I have a letter here from a lady called Jean Jones that was written to my colleague Pita Paraone, which he passed on to me for a response. She talks of her sister-in-law having to take a computer test for 2½ hours, which cost $236. When she passed that, she had to have a practical driving test with a police officer and a therapist for 1½ hours, which cost $209. That lady had a history of a mild stroke some few months before, but the testing system cost her $445. That is not the way to treat the elderly in this country. It is absolutely deplorable! I am hopeful that we can look at the driver’s licence system to address the concerns of elderly folk. It really does put stress on them.

I am also keen, as I heard the Hon Roger Sowry say, to look at logbooks, particularly at those for commercial operators. I have seen some logbooks with very, very minor errors in them, and I would suggest they are far more minor than errors that some of us who worked in those occupations made when we filled in our logbooks. [Interruption] Paul Adams, of course, does not make any mistakes, but with the exception of that member I would say we all made tiny errors. I have seen one driver’s logbook with a very minor error. To pick it up would have been very, very hard, yet the driver was fined hundreds of dollars. That is not on. Those guys are not academics; they are truck-drivers, and this country is blessed with having some of the best truck-drivers in the world. They are very courteous and, by and large, they know exactly what they are doing. To be fined hundreds of dollars for a minor error in a logbook is not on, so I am hopeful that we can have a look at those sorts of things.

I am also keen—again, members have raised this matter—that we look at the provisions for handling people who drive under the influence of alcohol and drugs. I would put some emphasis on the latter. I am not sure how the police pick up people who are under the influence of drugs, but it is being reported informally to me that because we have an MP in this House who advocates drug smoking on an individual basis, we are becoming very, very liberal on the roads.

💬 Sue Kedgley: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member is making incorrect statements in saying we have MPs who advocate drug smoking, etc.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): That is not a point of order; it is a debating matter.

It is a debating issue, Mr Speaker, and I thank you for correcting the member on that. I just want to tell her, because she might have forgotten, that not long ago a press release went out from her party advocating that people go to a park, smoke cannabis, then get in their cars, and go home.

💬 Hon Harry Duynhoven: What? That’s irresponsible.

Yes, it is irresponsible in the extreme. I hope we will take a good look at those sorts of concerns.

I also hope we will take a good look at foreign drivers who drive in this country. That is an area that is becoming a major concern. New Zealand First is on the record as saying that if foreigners drive irresponsibly in this country, then not only will they shorten their holiday or whatever reason they are here for but they will be on the first plane out of the country. I am not talking about minor offences, which might be understandable, I am talking about major offences where some people are doing quite serious antics on the road. New Zealand First is not in the business of allowing people to come to New Zealand and drive “any old how” while they carry on with their holidays. Our attitude is that if people commit an offence of serious proportions on our roads, then out they should go.

I am also hoping that the select committee will have an opportunity to look at how we police our roads. We have major concerns about some of the attitudes of the commercial vehicle police and how they handle truck-drivers. I have just referred to the logbook situation, but for some months now New Zealand First has been undertaking a survey—for want of a better term—on road policing. In excess of 90 percent of people who have responded to the survey have told us they believe that the traffic police should be separated from the police. We will pursue that with some vigour. Traffic duties should be taken away from the police and a traffic unit itself should be set up under the umbrella of the Land Transport Safety Authority. The public perception of police officers has gone down quite a lot, because those officers are seen as revenue gatherers, so I hope the select committee will have a good look at how we police the transport system in this country. Our view is that it could be done so much better if the traffic police were under the jurisdiction of the Land Transport Safety Authority, and the police force itself was left to get on with the job of handling criminals.

I have said all I need to say on this bill. New Zealand First will support it going to the select committee.

This is yet another bill—we have had a number of them today—on which there seems to be total support and consensus in the House. Indeed, I would say that seldom have we seen a bill full of so many good ideas and common-sense suggestions, and which I am sure would have the support of almost all New Zealanders. I am sure that New Zealanders would be delighted to know that we will target serious traffic offenders by reducing the speed and alcohol thresholds for immediate driver’s-licence suspension. It is a particularly good idea that we will require repeat drink-drivers to attend drug and alcohol assessment centres.

I say in parentheses that it was interesting that the New Zealand First representative had barely finished attacking United Future, saying how annoyed New Zealand First members were with United Future and how tired they were of United Future’s attacks, when he proceeded to make totally incorrect, ill-founded, stupid attacks on the Green Party. That is exactly the sort of behaviour that brings the House into disrepute. Someone goes on and on about how terrible it is that he or she is being attacked, then turns round and makes exactly the same sort of idiotic attacks as he or she has been complaining about.

And, for the record, arguing that people should not go to jail for smoking cannabis but, rather, should attend assessment centres, as is proposed in this bill, and that we should be focusing on harm minimisation, is not advocating for persons to smoke cannabis. Frankly, we are getting very, very tired of those pitiful little attacks from United Future and New Zealand First—just as New Zealand First members say they are getting tired of attacks on them. Let me just set the record straight there.

All the suggestions in this bill are basically aimed at trying to reduce speed and driving while under the influence of alcohol, which, as the Minister said, are the causes of so many accidents. This bill seeks to address the underlying causes of the road toll. I am sure that everyone will support it; I am sure that all New Zealanders will support it. It is so full of good ideas that we wonder why we did not have most of the proposals in it on our law books many decades or years ago.

The only thing I would say in conclusion is that the Minister of Transport talked about a proposal by United Future to put in legislation forbidding excessive noise from vehicles. I think that is targeted at boy racers who have radios on while they drive around. I suggest that surely the House has more important things to talk about than trying to prohibit the few people who drive around making a loud noise. Is this a serious problem? What is the problem we are trying to find a solution to here? That proposal is really a case of going overboard. There is not a huge problem, and, frankly, that sort of excessive regulation is unnecessary.

Anyway, that is not included in this excellent set of amendments. We are delighted to support them, and we will be active in the select committee in considering the proposals. I think that most of the submissions will be totally in support of the bill, and that New Zealanders will say we should get on and get them enacted as soon as possible.

The ACT party will support the referral of the bill to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. However, we will be looking at it very carefully at the select committee. The bill does need to be dealt to in select committee. There are some issues we will be looking at very carefully, along the same lines as Roger Sowry from the National Party signalled. The criteria for appointment to the Land Transport Safety Authority are to be consistent with the Human Rights Act. Surely, appointments to the authority should be made on the grounds that the appointees have the skills, experience, and talent for the position, not that their appointment complies with the Human Rights Act—an Act that is often more correctly called the “Human Wrongs Act”.

We support anything that tries to get recidivist drink-drivers off the road. They just wreak carnage on New Zealand families, leave behind a huge amount of grief, and more often than not they have absolutely no remorse for what they do. They take no responsibility for their crimes. They are just out there committing them again and again.

I do despair sometimes whether we will ever do anything about it by changing the law. Certainly, changing laws and passing regulation does bring about culture changes. However, I think that there is something endemic in the New Zealand psyche, whereby people have a skinful of liquor, they get behind the wheel of a car, and they think they are invincible. They think they can do things that, clearly, they are incapable of doing. In fact, they are in charge of a very, very dangerous weapon.

I do not have a problem with people having to spend a lot of money to get a driver’s licence, to pass the test. I understand where Peter Brown is coming from. It is difficult for a lot of elderly people, but then a lot of elderly people are very dangerous on the road, too. It has been proved by research recently that drivers who fall asleep repeatedly are just as dangerous as repeat drink-drivers, and a lot of elderly drivers fall into that category.

The other issue that concerns me is that it is no use passing laws like this if there are not the resources on the roads to police them—if roads in the areas where it is known that repeat drink-drivers get in their cars are not policed, and I am talking about country roads and country pubs. It is not so much now. One often drives out of Auckland at 6 o’clock in the evening and a booze bus is stopping everyone. People are probably not over the limit, but the police have a quota to fill of potential drink-drivers. They are not the people who are causing the problems. The people who are causing the problems mostly are in Dannevirke, Takapau, West Coast, and all those sorts of places. [Interruption] I am just making sure that members are awake.

Finally, I agree with Sue Kedgley from the Greens when she was alarmed at United Future wanting the select committee to look at noisy stereos in cars. Sure, these stereos are a nuisance, but should we, as politicians, get into the area of passing laws to ban things that we find a nuisance? I mean they are not actually physically hurting anyone except themselves, and they are not actually breaking the law. It is alarming that we have people in this House who think it is their role to pass laws against people who are just a bit of a bother. But we will be supporting this bill to select committee.

I rise on behalf of United Future to support this first reading, and I stand in amazement as here we have the two extreme parties in this Parliament—the ACT party on the extreme right and the Green Party on the extreme left—in agreement over a ridiculous issue. It is unbelievable. Here we have somebody talking about an amendment that my good colleague Larry Baldock is intending to put in this legislation to deal with noise from motor vehicles. Now that is 100 percent sensible, because just picking up on a point that Peter Brown made, we do have to have laws in this nation—first because otherwise we would not have a job, and that would be a very serious problem to us all! But the other side of that is that the people who interpret the laws must have a brain, and that is often where we have a problem.

Coming back to the noise issue, let us take for example the boy-racer legislation where we stated that a car can only have an exhaust system that is no noisier than the standard exhaust of a normal motorcar. There is a major problem here, because we have an after-market exhaust industry and, as many of the V8 lovers in this House would know, there are people who would just like to fit that little after-market muffler that gives a beautiful sports roar. All of a sudden the legalistic side of the Land Transport Safety Authority comes down hard and all of these people who have sports exhaust systems fitted to their cars are breaking the law.

In my personal opinion that is not necessarily because there was anything wrong with the law, but the people interpreting the law do not have a brain. So there is a need to have a look at exhausts in cars. My colleagues who have spoken against this measure may not have had the experience of living in a small suburban Auckland neighbourhood where young people will often wind up their stereos late at night and they cannot be dealt with.

I come back to the Green Party and its attack on United Future. I can assure members, as Peter Brown has stated, that if they put out a press release that people are to gather in a park to smoke cannabis and then drive home, then they should get a life. Most New Zealanders would find that totally unacceptable, and United Future finds that totally unacceptable. To me it is almost criminal to put out reports like that. What sort of message is the Green Party trying to give to the young people—or to the older people, as we can see—of this nation? It is not a message that United Future wants to put out. The Greens will have problems with United Future as long as they continue to promote that sort of ridiculous legislation, because we are a party of common sense.

United Future supports this legislation and we look forward to discussing it as it goes through the select committee.

Bill read a first time.

I move, That the Land Transport Amendment Bill be referred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee for consideration, that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during questions for oral answer, and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, notwithstanding Standing Orders 191 and 194(1)(b) and (c).