Land Transport Amendment Bill

I move, That the Land Transport Amendment Bill be now read a third time. I thank members for their work on this bill. The examination it has been given, and the amendments made, have improved it considerably. The bill is a result of a series of reviews, and it is intended to improve the safety and security of road users in line with the New Zealand Transport Strategy. It also remedies a number of problems in the legislative framework regarding the responsibilities of road users, traffic offences and penalties, and the driver-licensing system.

Its main features and significant amendments include a requirement to surrender superseded driver licences, in response to police and hospitality industry concerns that superseded learner and restricted licences are being used to assist minors to gain entry to licensed establishments. This bill contains amendments to transport operator licensing in line with the 2001 review. They aim to simplify and clarify licensing requirements and to reduce compliance costs for transport operators.

The bill also includes measures to improve commercial driver standards through the Ministry Rules Programme. Those include enhanced accountability for taxi organisations, and strengthened offence and penalty provisions. It now also requires taxi service licence holders and drivers to provide company details in Braille inside taxis. That step should enhance the security of visually impaired taxi passengers.

The bill prohibits persons convicted of serious violent and sexual offences from being a passenger service driver. That will address the risk to public safety from having those with such convictions in a one-on-one situation with passengers. The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee extended the scope of the provision in order to cover offences committed prior to the commencement of the bill, which means that the provision will apply to existing passenger service drivers with convictions for serious violent and sexual offences.

The House has further amended the provision, following concerns raised by the select committee, to allow some individuals convicted of certain listed offences—but not murder or sexual offences—to apply to have their passenger endorsements reinstated, in extremely limited circumstances. The circumstances apply when the conviction is more than 10 years old and when the applicant has not been convicted of an imprisonable offence in the previous 10 years. I consider that that approach appropriately balances the ability of those posing no risk to the safety of the public to maintain their passenger endorsements, with the legitimate personal security concerns of the users of passenger services.

The bill clarifies that home community support workers, who occasionally give rides to their clients—to help them with shopping, for example—do not require passenger service licences. It was originally intended that that matter be clarified via the forthcoming operator licensing rule. However, I accept that considerable uncertainty has arisen in the home-based care sector as to whether licensing is required, and so that issue should be rectified quickly.

In addition, operators of courtesy coach services have raised concerns that the bill will affect the service they provide. I can assure them that the bill does not require courtesy services to be licensed where the payment of a fare is not a condition of carriage. However, there will be an opportunity in the upcoming months for organisations to comment further on the passenger licensing provisions, during the development of the operator licensing rule. I will ensure that those organisations that have contacted me on that matter are kept informed about the submission process.

Work is also under way to extend the current exemption to passenger service licensing for car-pooling arrangements, to include initiatives such as the Rideshare programme currently being developed in Auckland, along with other social, informal, or not-for-profit activities. It has never been this Government’s intention to capture those arrangements in the licensing regime; clarification would therefore be useful, and I will seek to implement those exemptions by regulation as soon as practicable.

Following consultation and a review, the bill retains prescribed driving-hours and logbooks for commercial drivers. The select committee has placed key limits on the allowable hours in the primary Act. That gives due emphasis to the importance of managing fatigue within the transport industry. The bill also simplifies the driving-hours and logbook system, and introduces a new, simpler definition of work time. Additionally, 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. It also covers offences for load security, overloading, and speeding, where commercial vehicles are involved. Those are positive measures, which, by making the likes of consignees and consignors equally liable where they have knowingly contributed to an offence, will help improve the safety of commercial transport services.

The bill contains a number of common-sense amendments to remedy several defects in transport legislation. Those include empowering police to serve a notice of licence suspension at the roadside on a driver with more than 100 demerit points, where the director has been unable to serve the notice. They also include ensuring that driving offences involving injury or death apply both on and off a road, and updating the definition of “motor vehicle” to exclude vehicles powered by very small motors. The maximum power output for low-powered vehicles has been increased to 300 watts or higher for specified classes of vehicles, such as electrical bicycles.

During the debate on this bill the United Future party raised the issue of excessively noisy vehicles. As a consequence of discussions with them and with the Greens, the bill now strengthens the sanctions and tools available to enforcement officers to deal with excessively noisy vehicles. It does that by assigning 10 demerit points for vehicle noise offences, and by increasing fines. This bill contains a large number of positive changes to the legislative framework underpinning land transport safety. Not only will it improve safety and help save lives but it will also reduce unnecessary complication and business compliance costs. I commend it to the House.

National supports this bill. We recognise, as the Minister has indicated, that much of it covers improvements to the existing legislation and enhancing it. I note, in this third reading, that the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee members worked very constructively together to enhance the legislation. The rules in many parts are detailed, technical, and naturally intended to attract the interests of only those people who are most directly affected in the transport industry. So I note the rules around logbooks, etc., and the details around the limited licence powers of traffic officers, and the like. Some specific things did not get covered in earlier debates, including some of the rules around goods and services vehicles—in particular, the sizes of those vehicles. That area of the law has actually been made somewhat more liberal, and we recognise the value of that in terms of the practicality of operating modern New Zealand businesses.

There are, of course, some issues that the select committee and, indeed, the preceding debate have focused on—and quite properly so. The changes are substantial, and rest particularly around the P1 endorsement—that is, the endorsement for taxi-drivers, bus drivers, drivers of courtesy vehicles—and electric bikes. I want to turn to the issue of that P1 endorsement for taxi-drivers. The select committee, in some respects largely on its own initiative—and I note at this point the contribution of Deborah Coddington; it was she who really raised the issue at the select committee and the committee, to a person, saw the importance of the issue she was raising—recommended a major change to the legislation, so that people in the industry at present who have very serious convictions ought not to be allowed to hold a P1 endorsement. We felt that passengers in taxis are in a uniquely vulnerable situation, particularly late at night, and particularly if they are young women. So the people who are carrying those people ought to satisfy rigorous tests.

In essence, we have proposed that anyone who is henceforth convicted—or, more particularly, who has previously been convicted—of murder, of a serious sexual offence, or of other serious offences such as aggravated assault and the like should not be able to hold a licence. On further consideration, we did consider that there should be a very limited appeal. The National Party believes that the Government has gone too far, in essentially giving discretion on appeals to the director rather than to the court system. If the proposals put forward by the Minister had referred, for instance, to a District Court considering that issue, they would have almost certainly received our support, but we consider that giving that power to the director has softened the requirement excessively.

The courtesy vehicle issue vexed the select committee. We have come up with some minor modifications to the existing rules. I am not sure that we ever got that one completely right, and no doubt it is something that could be revisited further.

I want to comment on the issue of electric bikes and then, by extension, on some of the issues that I think this country will have to look at in the future. We believe that the number of electric bikes being used is likely to increase, for a whole variety of reasons. More cycleways are being constructed and, by and large, they have support within local communities. Almost certainly that will lead to a greater increase in the numbers of bicycles that have electrical assistance to propel them, and we believe that a more liberal approach is necessary. It is quite common now for those bikes to have motors of 600 watts. That will become increasingly common in the industry, and we believed a blanket exemption up to that level was appropriate. The Minister has said that the director should have the discretion to rule on exemptions for vehicles with motors of between 300 watts and 600 watts, and maybe that is something that will need to be revisited further.

I want to close on this particular point: I believe that, as a nation, we will have to consider more seriously the issue of vehicle emissions. I think that there is a real question as to whether we are taking a rigorous enough approach to that issue. Certainly, much of the New Zealand passenger fleet consists of imported vehicles, many of which were quite old at the time of being first imported. I wonder whether we will have to look more rigorously at putting an age limitation on the first importation of those vehicles, plus take a more rigorous approach to the emission levels of those vehicles, generally. In a whole variety of ways, this country is concerned about global warming. There are different approaches to that issue. The Government’s approach is very much—

💬 Phil Heatley: Taxes.

—taxes, as my colleague has quite rightly put it. National is opposed to a carbon tax but, nevertheless, we recognise the seriousness of the issue. I note that last week President Bush also noted the significance of the issue. I believe that in due course the United States will become a party, not to Kyoto, but to a subsequent convention. Rather than taking a punitive tax approach—which is always the fond approach of the socialist; the European way, if you will—the approach of the United States is to provide incentives for new technology. I guess it is an issue of whether one thinks an incentive or a tax is more appropriate. We know what the Government thinks. It thinks the tax, or the punitive approach—the cost-plus mentality approach—is the right way. I believe that in time that will be shown to be an unwise decision.

Nevertheless, I think there is concern that we should have a more efficient vehicle fleet. I have only to think of the work done by the Toyota and Honda motor companies on their hybrid technology vehicles. I imagine that over the next few years the United States will be incentivising that kind of technology. President Bush has already indicated that is the pathway the United States will take, and I believe that a future agreement, post-Kyoto, will have a much greater focus on incentives rather than on punitive taxes. The outcome, of course, is intended to be the same: to reduce the effect of global warming.

💬 Hon Pete Hodgson: This is about land transport.

I say this to the Minister, who has responsibilities in this area. I believe that when this issue is reviewed further—and it will have to be—the pathway of Kyoto and of taxation will be seen, essentially, as a flawed approach. Nevertheless, the matter will have to be dealt with, and I believe that the way of the future will be technological innovation. That will be driven more through an incentivisation process than through punitive taxes. I believe that one of the things we will have to look at is the age of our vehicle fleet and the rules around the importation of motor vehicles, particularly their age at the time of their first importation. It is noteworthy that Toyota and Honda have said that importing vehicles that are already 8 or 10 years old means that New Zealand misses out fundamentally on newer technology.

If that issue was looked at more thoroughly by the Government and Crown agencies—the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority, for instance, should be looking at that issue more intensively—we may come up with a more rational approach to that particular issue. That is not to suggest that we would not have second-hand imports; clearly, they are a feature of New Zealand’s way of life, if you will, and we do get substantial technological advantages as a consequence of importing them. But that does not mean to say that the alternative is essentially to have open slather on importing any vehicle, no matter how old it is. So I suggest that as we look at the issues that this bill raises, we see we will have to think more creatively and more imaginatively in order to deal with the issue of global warming.

I am very pleased to see this legislation finally reach this point. It is good law. It deals with some very serious issues. It makes sure that our punishments for those who drink and drive, and those who speed at the upper end of the scale, are much harsher so that we actually deal with the repeat offenders, and with those who are going extremely fast, in a less tolerant way than the law currently allows.

We also deal with some quite small but significant issues, in the bill. Some are very important, particularly to those who drive for a living. We are allowing people who are currently disqualified from driving, say, buses to have the chance to go for a limited licence if they have not offended while driving their buses. We know that there is a shortage of truck drivers and bus drivers in this country, so some of these minor changes actually help people. People might not be able to continue to drive a passenger service vehicle, but they can drive a truck. At the moment they are prohibited from doing both, and that does not make sense.

Visually impaired and blind people, who are great users of taxis, for obvious reasons, will benefit from a small but significant change. The bill will put Braille signs in taxis for their safety, so they can identify who has been driving them, which company, etc. Surprisingly, the National Party opposed the provision that has just made the law on taxi signage safer, simpler, and better. The National Party’s position is to make it harder and much more expensive. National members say that the taxi companies should go through the courts and use competition law to do that, which shows people that they have no understanding of small businesses and the costs that apply to them.

Changes to liability through the chain of responsibility say that one cannot design a contract that actually makes the driver break the law. One cannot overload, and do the things that are being done out there at the moment, and get away with it. The Road Transport Forum asked for that change, and the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and the Government are very pleased to be able to deliver it.

We have also taken some regulation away from the smaller end of the industry—the courier driver type of operations. The law is much simpler now, with lower compliance costs. It is a sensible law, and I support it fully.

Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.

Let me first apologise to those people who have just tuned into their radio at 2 o’clock—expecting Parliament to be sitting—to hear the Rt Hon Winston Peters take on the Government again and embarrass it even further. Unfortunately that will not happen. The Government has given up the ghost. It has put the House into urgency. So the Rt Hon Winston Peters has been denied his opportunity to ask this Government some penetrating questions.

We are debating the third reading of the Land Transport Amendment Bill, and it is a bill that New Zealand First supports. That is not to say that the Government’s bill is 100 percent correct, but it is pretty close.

💬 Darren Hughes: 99 percent?

Maybe not 99 percent, but pretty close. There are three aspects of this bill that I would like to touch on. The first is the simplified logbook regime for commercial truck-drivers. It is long awaited and long overdue. Truck-drivers are not the brains of New Zealand, and in saying that I am not putting them down. They are average guys who drive trucks for a living and by and large drive them very, very well. But I have seen some entries in logbooks that have allegedly resulted in drivers being charged with a crime. The one that comes to mind is a truck-driver who signed off at Wanganui one evening and said that he had off-loaded his truck at the depot at Wanganui. The following morning at 6 o’clock, or half-past 6, he signed on again at the depot “loading”, but he did not put “Wanganui”. Apparently, he was fined in excess of $300 and suspended for a period of time. He was a family man with a couple of children, and, but for the goodness of his employer, he would have lost quite a lot of money. That sort of regime seems ludicrous to New Zealand First. So we are very, very pleased that this Land Transport Amendment Bill simplifies the logbook regime for truck-drivers. It is easier for them to fill in the details and easier for the police to identify any problems.

This country depends on trucking. Frankly we do not have enough trucks. When the logging comes back on stream, as it will in a year or so, we will be in dire need of more truck-drivers; if not by the thousands, certainly by the hundreds. They are the backbone of society. There is not much that we purchase from retail stores that is not delivered by truck. Indeed, much of the cargo that comes and goes through our ports is handled by trucks. Some people say: “Put it on the rail.”, but railways are not as flexible as trucking when it comes to small parcels of cargo. Rail is OK and is very good when moving goods from depot to depot, but when it comes to small parcels and small container loads—two or three containers or two or three truckloads—trucks are in their element.

New Zealand is a nation of small exporters, as well as large exporters, and trucks have a role to play. Trucking people are entitled to a straightforward regime, and in our view this simplified logbook will achieve that. I only hope the commercial vehicle inspection unit of the police takes on board what is being done today, and adopts a more cooperative attitude with the trucking people than it has done in the past.

The second area of concern is the contentious issue of passenger endorsements on licences for taxi drivers and bus drivers. New Zealand First totally supports the concept that a person who is guilty of murder or other serious crimes, as listed in the bill, should not be driving a taxi or a bus. We absolutely support the notion that people who have that sort of past should be prohibited from driving taxis or buses. But somewhat regrettably several hundred of our taxi-drivers—if we believe the figures given to us—are guilty of some sort of heinous crime. At one point the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee simply wanted to say “out”, meaning “out, out” with those people. But in its wisdom the Government has listened and said that, although it is not prepared to accept those people, if they have an established track record of driving competently and have caused no problems to the public, the bill provides the right of an appeal for some of them—not people who have been guilty of murder, rape, or sexual offences—but, none the less, those who have been guilty of some serious offences.

The Supplementary Order Paper that accompanies this bill provides a means for reinstatement of passenger endorsement for people who have not reoffended in the last 10 years, so have a clean record for that period. Some of them might well have been rehabilitated to such a degree that they own the taxicab or own the business. It would be most unfair to say that we are prohibiting them from driving forever, without any right of appeal. This bill stops them from driving, but it gives them the right of appeal to the Director of Land Transport or, subsequently, to the High Court.

New Zealand First prides itself on being the law and order party in this Parliament. We would, if we were honest, want those people totally excluded from driving taxis or buses. But if we want law and order in the country we have to have justice, and justice is dependent on giving everyone a fair hearing. As much as I dislike defending the right of people who are guilty of some awful crimes, to have a fair hearing, if we want law and order we must have justice. Those people are entitled to a hearing, and a legitimate hearing at that. So New Zealand First supports the Supplementary Order Paper, just as it supports the bill.

Our third concern is courtesy vans operated by clubs. I am quite relieved, after talking to the Minister and his officials and hearing the Minister’s comments in the House, that the Government is taking an objective view on this issue. I am told there are 350 licensed clubs in this country with 220,000 voting members. The clubs probably have other associated members who cannot vote. It is common practice for the clubs to run a courtesy bus, although it is illegal for them to charge a fee. They are meant to seek donations, but currently many of them charge a fee. Frankly, the Parliament must face up to the reality of what is happening in the outside world. I am told by the Minister and his officials that because this bill will not come into force until January next year, there is a time frame available. I was encouraged by the Minister’s comments that the Government would be listening to submissions from those clubs, or people associated with those clubs, in a very positive manner, and that he was hopeful of addressing the concern under what he termed “operating licence rules”. I think I have that correct. This is a good bill, and 90 percent correct—

💬 Darren Hughes: 99 percent—

That 99 percent must be a record for this Government. So New Zealand First supports the passage of this bill.

I want to speak briefly in the third reading of this bill. It is probably the last piece of legislation that I will see all the way through this House, and I take the opportunity to thank the chairman of the select committee, Mark Gosche, who knew what was dear to my heart in this legislation—that is, cleaning up the taxi industry by not allowing those who have convictions for serious sexual abuse crimes to hold a P endorsement on their licence and be able to drive taxis or buses. As a member of a small party who is on two select committees, and spokesperson for 10 portfolios, it was difficult for me to be at every single select committee meeting. The chairman went out of his way to make sure that when I was there we discussed clauses that related to those offences, and I do appreciate that. As I said before, it was a good—[Interruption] If those members would just listen for a moment, they would hear that there is no need for them to interject. This legislation is a good example of people working together in a select committee to achieve the required result. I think this legislation does actually make New Zealand, in some small way, a better place.

We are cleaning up the taxi industry. We need to clean up the taxi industry. For a while there were a lot of calls that it needed to be totally regulated again. This legislation steers a way between those two opposites, if one likes. There is no need to go back to total regulation of the taxi industry. We do not want to go back to the days when women came out of a restaurant at 11 o’clock at night and there was not a taxi in sight. The industry was so tightly controlled and so expensive to get into that there was never a taxi when one really needed one. That did not make for safe cities. There is still some merit to the argument put forward by people who have been in the taxi industry for quite a long time that perhaps we should look at devolving the control of the taxi industry back to local authorities or local communities. They have an interest in keeping a good taxi industry in their town or city, because it is a reflection on the state of their town or city. They could take some pride in having a good fleet of taxis, good drivers, and all that sort of thing. It is more a matter of self-interest for them. This bill does not deal with that, but maybe it will be dealt with in the future.

One of the things that I am particularly pleased got through is the provision to make the ban on those with serious convictions retrospective; it will apply to those already in the industry. It is a very high bar; sexual crimes subject to a sentence of 7 years’ jail or more, murder, and a number of other crimes fall into that category. But we did discuss and get the officials to work out whether we could make it retrospective. We all agreed, and there was cross-party support, with Lianne Dalziel, Lynne Pillay, Maurice Williamson, and myself in particular agreeing that it was just not good enough to allow these people to drive in these situations—even to drive a bus. Maurice Williamson raised the point that perhaps the case of a bus driver is not quite so bad, because a lot of passengers are on board, so it is harder to commit a crime. That is not the only point. I believe that people who pay for a service—and we are talking about paying passengers here—have a right to know that the person who is driving, and in charge of that service, is a fit and proper person. By a fit and proper person we mean that that person has not been convicted of any serious crime. It is not just about whether we give them the opportunity to commit those crimes again; it is about the safety of communities and the perception of being safe.

That is why I agreed that we needed to look at the issue of being fair to those who have been rehabilitated—that they should have a right of appeal to the High Court when their application to renew their licence is turned down. We now have seen that come in on a Supplementary Order Paper, slightly differently. Unlike the Minister, I do not have a huge amount of faith in the Director of Land Transport in terms of his using his discretion to decide whether those people are fit and proper persons, especially when their crimes were committed overseas. However, we shall have to see.

The thing I do take issue with is the 10-year barrier. Peter Brown thinks 10 years is enough—what if, for instance, the taxi-driver has been rehabilitated enough to own his or her own business? Hundreds of sex offenders and murderers own their own business. Owning one’s own business does not make one a safe person by any stretch of the imagination. Kidnapping a child is one of the crimes that, under this legislation, would bar a person from getting a taxi licence, but under Supplementary Order Paper 375 one would have a right of appeal—one would not be barred automatically. Say a person kidnapped a 6-year-old girl, was convicted for that, and did his or her time, and that was 10½ years ago. That little girl would now be 16½ years. She gets into a cab and sees that the man who kidnapped her 10 years ago is driving the cab. Ten years ago is nothing to that person. In that person’s life it is nothing.

Another crime that comes under the category of appeal is attempted murder. For murder a person is automatically barred, but for attempted murder a person is not. The intent is still the same; it is just that the person did not succeed. He or she did not kill the person; he or she attempted to murder the person, intended to murder him or her. To me 10 years back is not enough. What if a person was the subject of a murder attempt when he or she was 40 years old, and 10 years later jumps on a bus, hands over the fare, and sees that the driver is the person who attempted to murder him or her 10, 11, 12 years ago? Those people should not have such a low barrier to the right of appeal. I still think they should go back to the High Court to fight it out there. If they were genuinely rehabilitated, and genuinely believed that they had a right to be in a position of trust, then they would put their money where their mouth is and fork out the amount of money needed to appeal to the High Court. They would not take such an appeal lightly. I am not saying that people do not become rehabilitated; they do. But there are plenty of other jobs—and other driving jobs—that they can do.

In closing, another thing that the bill does not address, but that needs to be addressed in terms of taxi-drivers, is stopping Work and Income New Zealand from using taxpayers’ money to set immigrants up with cars and licences—providing translators when they sit exams, and putting signs on its walls telling them that they can get jobs as taxi-drivers. As someone said recently, when one comes out of the Auckland airport one could be excused for thinking one was in downtown Delhi, or somewhere like that. We have more than enough taxi-drivers. We do not need to spend taxpayers’ money putting immigrants into taxis.

💬 Hon Rick Barker: So they don’t deserve a job?

Of course they deserve a job.

💬 Hon Rick Barker: They don’t deserve a job?

The Minister says they do not deserve a job. He might think they do not deserve a job. I ask him whose money is getting them into a job. It is taxpayers’ money; money is being taken off the taxpayers to get them into a job.

💬 Hon Rick Barker: So are we going to spend money on white people getting a job?

We only take brown immigrants, do we? I thought we took immigrants from all over the world. The Minister does not want brown immigrants getting into jobs. Well, that is very interesting from that Minister.

In conclusion, I am just pleased to be able to support this legislation. Although it will not be the silver bullet for the taxi industry or the transport industry, it goes a long way, and the ACT party will be voting for it.

I endorse the comments of Deborah Coddington about the cooperative nature of the process. In fact, it is interesting to hear the sort of barracking across the House. The select committee was much more peaceful than that. We support the Land Transport Amendment Bill. It contains a range of common-sense measures and is the outcome of numerous submissions and substantial consultation and deliberation. However, the Greens felt obliged to include a minority report on the bill. It reported back over the decision of the committee to make passenger licence “fit and proper person” provisions retrospective, without minimum sentence or appeal provisions. As originally written, the bill made provision for the opportunity to exempt individuals sentenced to less than 2 years in prison, and it was not proposed that the provisions be retrospective.

Because of several well-publicised incidents of individuals with serious convictions gaining a P endorsement on a licence and subsequently committing an offence against a passenger, the committee decided the provisions should be retrospective. The committee considered the possibility of appeal, but, apart from myself and latterly Peter Brown, it was not satisfied that the conditions for appeal as presented by the officials were sufficiently robust to protect passengers from the possibility of finding themselves in a taxicab with a rapist or murderer. So rather than run the risk of letting anyone through, it was decided to remove the possibility by removing all.

Deborah Coddington asked whether the time period of 10 years without conviction was long enough, if, for example, the person’s last conviction was more than 10 years ago. She wondered about people who had been convicted of kidnapping or rape, but we must remember that in addition to the 10-year requirement, the director has to be convinced the person is unlikely to offend again. I would have thought that a person convicted of a serious sexual offence or kidnapping would be unlikely to pass the barrier. I agree with the intent of the provision, and since the “fit and proper person” test may not on occasions have been applied robustly enough in the past, there may be a case for re-examining drivers with previous serious convictions. However, the prospect of depriving persons of their livelihood long after conviction, and quite possibly for an offence at the minor end of the scale, and removing the minimum sentence provisions for an offence for which the person has already been punished and which the community may well have known about and forgiven long-ago, is, in my opinion, unfair and would likely result in a serious injustice, without any improvement in passenger safety. The Greens are pleased that the Supplementary Order Paper reinstates the minimum sentences and provides for a right of appeal.

I have a query about new section 29B(1) inserted by clause 13: “A person whose passenger endorsement is deemed to be expired and of no effect under section 29A(1A) may apply to the Director to have that passenger endorsement reinstated if—(a) the person has not been convicted of an offence specified in section …;”. Then follows the word “and”, and I wonder whether it should be “or”. Because paragraph (b) states: “the person’s last conviction for a specified serious offence occurred more than 10 years before the commencement of this section; and”. It seems to me it should be “or”. Perhaps I have read it wrongly, but people might want to think about that.

When I drew attention to the matter originally, one party put out a press release saying the Greens were soft on crime and wanted rapists and murderers to be driving taxis. Of course that is nonsense. People convicted of serious offences should not be driving taxis, but this provision is for those at the lower end of offending. The Supplementary Order Paper provides that the director may reinstate a passenger endorsement if he or she is convinced that the applicant poses no risk to the community.

The point was made that even schoolteachers and early childhood workers are not subject to such conditions. It is not difficult to imagine an incensed public dumping on Parliament at the prospect of losing their taxi-driver, perhaps the only taxi-driver, in a small rural community, because of a 30-year-old scrap, an only offence by that person, committed in his or her youth. That is the kind of situation that no doubt some members in the House might have found themselves in, had they not been lucky. I can think of times in the past when I have been beaten up by people and not inflicted any great injury on anybody, but it is possible that I could have found myself in such a situation.

I know that most members of the committee shared my concerns about the possibility of an injustice and were motivated by a concern for the safety of passengers. I hope they are satisfied that the amendments made will not endanger passengers.

I wish to speak briefly about the provision for licensing small motorised personal transport devices—namely, mopeds, scooters, skateboards, recumbents, etc. The rationale for exempting these vehicles is that if the motor is such that they pose no more threat than someone on a bicycle, then what justification can there be for treating them differently? The bill has a little wriggle-room to provide the director with the opportunity to consider new and innovative devices that might pose a minimal risk, for inclusion in the list of devices not requiring licensing. I think that is an interesting aspect, and with the need for more innovative means of transport, it opens up the opportunity for some of those more innovative means of transport. The Greens will be supporting the bill.

United Future is also supporting the bill. I think one of its strongest points is the restrictions on the taxi industry. I want to pick up on what Deborah Coddington was saying about offenders. I was thinking about that over the lunch break, and definitely there are certain areas of transgression that prevent people from having a second chance and being in the situation of being a taxi-driver—such as sexual sins. When we think about the 10-year time period in respect of past convictions, we do not know what might trigger somebody in a certain situation. We are talking about the taxi industry, about the one-on-one situation between a taxi-driver and a female or male passenger. Therefore, the amendment is a welcome addition to enable people to feel safe when travelling in taxis.

I sat on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee for part of the process, and it was great to see the various parties in Parliament working well together on this legislation. It was refreshing, and Mark Gosche did a tremendous job of chairing the committee and picking up on everybody’s viewpoint.

I want to touch on the amendment that United Future has had put in the bill with regard to noisy vehicles. We had actually pushed for the ability to have a noisy vehicle immobilised. The noise is made in the late hours of the night, and causes a nuisance. It is a problem throughout most of the major cities in the country. However, noise in itself is an interesting scenario. In transport, one of the things that has concerned me is that we have regulations that car exhaust systems must be no noisier than they were when originally manufactured. That requirement is causing major challenges to the secondary exhaust market. I fail to see how we can have a requirement that an exhaust be no noisier than when it was originally manufactured. Surely, we must have the simplicity of putting in a maximum decibel level that an exhaust noise can be. My suggestion would be 100 decibels. To give members some idea of what 100 decibels is, I tell them that a Stagecoach bus accelerating away from traffic lights reaches 123 decibels. I myself have checked it with a meter, and 100 decibels is not an unreasonable amount.

There are two types of citizens when it comes to noise. Firstly, there are people I refer to as “CAVE” people—“Citizens Against Virtually Everything”—and, secondly, there are the enthusiasts like myself who just want a nice, crisp-sounding exhaust note on their motor vehicle. “CAVE” people are the sort who live around the Western Springs Stadium in Auckland. They move into an area that has the magnificent sound of speedway racing, which has been going on there for decades, and then they begin to complain about the noise.

Getting back to the amendment that United Future wanted, I think it is of serious concern, especially to the tourism industry, when people in cars cause undue noise at night-time in resorts such as Tauranga, and keep people awake. We need to look seriously at how we will address the problem in that area, but I say let us not go overboard and take that nice, crisp exhaust note off all cars.

I am also pleased to see that the issue of a P licence—for passenger servicing—for drivers of courtesy vehicles has been looked at. We have to face up to the fact—and provide for it in legislation—that certain service industries are doing road safety a favour in driving people home. Sometimes it becomes a fine balance in the law as to what we are going to do about that.

But overall the bill is good legislation. I believe that it will go a long way to cleaning up a lot of areas. We welcome the changes to the logbook requirements. We think that is a step in the right direction. We acknowledge that more and more of this type of tracking will be done electronically, and that is great. Probably there will not be a problem with speeding trucks in the long term, because all of them will be tracked by the Global Positioning System, and the police will be able to see what speeds they are travelling at in various sectors. In the end, that will bring greater road safety, which I think everybody here is looking forward to. So United Future is happy to support the legislation.

I take this opportunity to take a short call in support of the bill, and also to acknowledge the comments made by previous speakers. I was a member of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, and quite agree with Paul Adams that Mark Gosche did a great job chairing that committee. We made some very progressive decisions to make this bill very sensible and workable in order to improve safety and security for all road users in New Zealand. I also acknowledge the people who made a submission on courtesy vehicles. We were able to make some really common-sense decisions about the use of courtesy vehicles, making sure that the good work being done in that area is not impeded but that safety is ensured. I will not take any more time. I am proud of this bill, and I commend it to the House.

I notice from the timetable that this bill’s passage through the House is being completed on almost the anniversary date of its introduction to Parliament. The bill was introduced in June 2004, so on the anniversary date of its introduction it is quite pleasing to see parties on all sides of the House supporting it.

I want to raise an issue that I think the National Party and ACT also raised, in terms of whether individuals who have committed serious sexual and other offences in the past can, after a 10-year period without further conviction, be a taxi-driver. We are hopeful that the rigid enforcement of this provision will see a real improvement. I notice that in the last few years, particularly since the promotional campaign against drink-driving has been run, the use of taxis has hugely increased, especially at weekends. Security in terms of the type of individual who is allowed to drive taxis is therefore important.

However, from a personal point of view, I am disappointed that Labour and United Future did not see fit to support the two amendments I proposed during the Committee stage. I took one issue just to demonstrate how difficult it was, and how slow it can be at times, to introduce measures to improve safety on roads. For example, I learnt that the 1999 Land Transport (Drivers Licensing) Rule requires that a driving instructor who teaches driving for reward hold the I—driving instructor—endorsement licence. The rule also requires the instructor to have the appropriate class of licence for the vehicle that the learner is being taught to drive. That is all very well, but unfortunately the offence provision for providing unlicensed driving instruction for reward was omitted from the Land Transport Act 1998. That has been picked up only in this current legislation. For an offence to be omitted for 7 years before it can be put right has saddened me.

I am also saddened that those two parties did not see fit to accept the two amendments I proposed that would strengthen safety provisions. Currently, individuals who give lessons for monetary reward have to hold an I endorsement licence, yet the public has no transparent or quick way to learn whether they do; neither is an enforcement agent able to verify readily whether driving instructors do hold an I endorsement licence. My amendment was simply that it should be displayed in the vehicle when driving lessons are being conducted. When we think about it, we require taxi-drivers to display their names and identification as a reference point for concerned enforcement agents, passengers, or, in this case, students. I was very disappointed that Labour and United Future did not see fit to incorporate that amendment. I hate to think it will take another 7 years for a sensible amendment like that to be accepted.

I also proposed a further amendment that driving instructors who teach for monetary reward should be limited to New Zealand citizens or permanent resident visa holders. If we are concerned about safety on roads, then I think that the people who are qualified to teach for monetary gain should, at least, be very familiar with New Zealand road conditions and New Zealanders’ driving habits, and with legislation and regulations surrounding that. So I was extremely disappointed, once again, that Labour and United Future did not see fit to endorse that amendment. Just now in the courts, a driver’s-licence testing officer has been handed down a sentence of 280 hours’ community service for selling licences to individuals who did not seek to be tested, and another driving instructor who offered to sell licences is now facing sentence.

I am watching with interest to see whether there is one standard of law in New Zealand. I expressed concern that the sentence of 280 hours of community service did not send people a serious enough message about not accepting bribes. I think it is very sad that in New Zealand, where we pride ourselves on not tolerating corruption or bribery, the sentence does not, in my mind, reflect the serious nature of the offence. After all, these individuals did not pass driving tests, and are allowed to drive on New Zealand roads. They are endangering not just their own lives but also those of pedestrians and other drivers on the roads.

So I hope Land Transport New Zealand will take this issue seriously, because history shows that it does not respond effectively and efficiently to complaints about driving instructors. Proper investigation seems to be very slow in coming, and there is a reluctance to take action. This morning in my second reading speech I read out the advertisements of driving schools, or of individual driving instructors, which offer individuals a choice of testing officer, a choice of sitting the test on weekends, and a choice of the route of their test. I have been assured by the Minister for Transport Safety, the Hon Harry Duynhoven, that Land Transport New Zealand is undertaking to monitor these types of advertisements. However, these advertisements continue to appear in newspapers. The ones I quoted are dated 10 June, which is last Friday.

Overseas students shared their astonishment at this. They said that in their home countries blatantly fraudulent advertisements like that are not allowed in newspapers, and that they are more likely to be displayed on lamp posts, etc. I urge the Minister to monitor Land Transport New Zealand to ensure that these types of complaints are taken seriously. I think that in New Zealand we should not tolerate publications that contain advertisements of a fraudulent nature, as they indicate that bribery and corruption are taking place.

Although National supports this legislation, I am extremely disappointed that Labour and United Future have not endorsed the two amendments I proposed. I can only live in hope that Land Transport New Zealand will start to take those complaints seriously.

I rise to support the Land Transport Amendment Bill and to say that it is excellent legislation whose introduction was also supported by United Future, the Greens, and, of course, our coalition partner, the Progressive Party. The bill enhances the safety aspects of transport legislation. It improves the law concerning the responsibility of road users. It is tough on serious offences, particularly those in relation to alcohol and speed. It enhances the power to take effective action against repeat drunk-drivers. It also offers security to the travelling public in that those people who have convictions for serious violent and sexual offences will be prohibited from being a taxi-driver. This is good legislation and I am pleased to see that it has the almost unanimous support of the House.

Bill read a third time.