Land Transport Amendment Bill

First I would like to thank the members who have contributed to the debate so far. I take a brief call to talk about where the bill goes from here.

As members will be aware, there are some Supplementary Order Papers. There is a Supplementary Order Paper from the Hon Jim Anderton and another one from a National member that apply to clause 3. It is important that members, in looking at the bill as it has returned from the select committee, read the struck-out clauses, to learn what the original bill set out to do. I hope that members, as they consider the bill, look at what was proposed—remembering that the bill was to try to remedy the situation of the very people whom Dr Mapp talked about.

Also, I point out that I was a little surprised to hear a few speakers from the National Opposition talking about their wish not to allow anyone who was imprisoned to come back into the industry in the future. I am a little surprised at that, given that some of the National MPs who contacted me in the Christmas holiday period actually contacted me to ask me to do anything possible to help their constituents who, in one or two cases, had in fact been imprisoned. So although they are saying to those constituents that they will do everything they can to help them, it appears to me—and I hope they will reconsider their position on this—that, even in cases of minor sentences of a month or 3 months, they are now prepared to vote against the very people they have asked me to work to help. Over the Christmas holiday period I talked to each and every party—to National members, Labour members, and members of other parties. Indeed, I rang some myself after receiving messages from them. I hope the National members will reconsider their position, because if they go down the path they have proposed here this evening, on the one hand they are saying to those people that they will be in touch with the Minister and will do what they can to help them, and on the other hand they are voting against doing something for the very people whom they have asked the Minister to help. There is a double standard there that I sincerely hope does not get carried through. I beg the National MPs to think about their position on those issues.

I look forward to the debate, and hope we can have a constructive debate along the lines of the original bill. Sure, the select committee has come back with other ideas, but we should look carefully at what the bill was designed to do, and ensure that people actually do get some justice from this.

I rise to propose the amendment in the name of the Hon Jim Anderton set out on Supplementary Order Paper 14. I was a member of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee that in the very short time given to it looked at this bill, which amends the Land Transport Act. The select committee found the issues very difficult to deal with in terms of trying to get a balance. Public safety was obviously paramount in our thoughts as we looked at the legislation. We were also thinking about consistency. That was at the forefront of our minds when we discussed the issues in the select committee. Workability, of course, is very important in this type of legislation. Mixed in with that is the reputation and the trust of the industry involved. Another issue we had to consider was for how long, and for what reasons, society continues to punish people who have already been dealt with by our justice system.

So, in talking to this amendment, I wish to say that it supports all of those concepts that the select committee was trying to deal with, and it brings some balance to them. The amendments set out on the Supplementary Order Paper allow people who have been convicted of an offence specified in section 29A of the Land Transport Act to apply for a passenger endorsement as long as they were not sentenced to imprisonment for a term exceeding 12 months for that offence. The bill as reported back allowed only those who were convicted under sections 134 and 135 of the Crimes Act, and who were not imprisoned, to apply.

The other thing that the Supplementary Order Paper does is to allow people convicted of a specified serious offence, and who had a passenger endorsement deemed expired by amendments to the Land Transport Act that came into effect on 16 January 2006, to apply to have their endorsement reinstated. If the offence was a sexual offence, an application can be made as long as the sentence for that offence was not a period of imprisonment of more than 12 months. So this amendment promotes consistency.

The question it raises is how long society actually continues to punish people and interfere with their rehabilitation. Some of the people who currently have been disadvantaged by the legislation the select committee was considering were handed down sentences of imprisonment for as little as 1 month. The particular individual to whom I refer was handed down a sentence of 1 month’s imprisonment in 1964.

💬 Hon Harry Duynhoven: 41 years ago.

That is right, and this person is not able to continue in his occupation because of the 1 month’s sentence of imprisonment that was handed down. Those are some of the examples of the people this amendment seeks to support. The justice system worked to ensure that offenders pay their debt; the job of this legislation is to ensure public safety. This amendment will achieve that through using the term of imprisonment handed down to offenders as a means of determining whether they can apply to the Director of Land Transport for passenger endorsement.

I acknowledge that the amendment deals with many of the issues raised by Keith Locke and the Green Party when Keith Locke spoke about the issue of double jeopardy. I also want to acknowledge that the amendment also deals with the issues raised by Hone Harawira and the Māori Party. Hone Harawira spoke of the concepts of restorative justice—he referred to it as justice that heals, not justice that hammers—and the willingness to look for the good in people. I believe that we can look for the good in people who have offended and received sentences of imprisonment of 1 or 2 months in some instances. We need to allow the Director of Land Transport to apply the criteria in deciding whether these people should be allowed to be part of the passenger transport industry. This amendment gives those people the right to apply. I would like to move that amendment.

I want to make it clear to Ms Moroney that we will be opposing Mr Anderton’s amendment. We will also be opposing the Minister’s amendment in the same area, although I appreciate that his relates to clause 4. We do so because there was a very deliberate reason why the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee last year passed the legislation in the form it did. That is not to say it got it entirely right. It was intended that it deliver a very strict message, which was that sexual offenders should not be driving taxis. We are willing to concede that it was not intended that it cover those people convicted under section 134 of the Crimes Act. Virtually all of the cases that are relevant arise under that section. Essentially, they are the cases such as the one relating to the 17-year-old boy and his 15-year-old girlfriend. It was not intended that the legislation cover that situation. However, the bill that has come back from the select committee is intended to deal with this. Issues were raised with me, and I questioned the people carefully. They assured me that they had been only fined. In fact, some people had been convicted and discharged.

I want to turn to some of the facts here, because they are important. Two hundred and thirty-four people were affected by the legislation, which is quite a significant number. Two people had actually been convicted of murder. I recall one member of the select committee saying that perhaps those people should have a shot at having a taxi licence. He subsequently changed his mind. I will not name that person here. Those categories are no longer included—with the consent, I might add, of the relevant member, whom I will not name. The other offences included 13 for sexual violation. Do members know what that actually is? It is rape. Thirteen taxi drivers who had been rapists have been driving people around in taxis. Thirty of those 234 people had been convicted of having sex with children under 12. Eight of the people had been convicted of incest. I could go on. In short, these are serious offences, and I cannot believe that anyone would seriously suggest that any of those people should have the right even to apply for passenger endorsement reinstatement, because that is the effect, I might add, of Mr Anderton’s amendment.

The core of it is—and the Minister is obviously noting this; it is his particular concern, as it is the concern of the rest of Parliament—that 130 people have been convicted under section 134 of the Crimes Act and 45 persons under section 135. By and large the convictions relate to events a long time ago when the people were, by definition, very young—as in the case involving the 15-year-old and the 17-year-old. How do the penalties compare? We should bear in mind that 130 came under section 134 of the Crimes Act. Interestingly enough, 41 of the penalties involved fines. Suspended sentences, community service, probation, and borstal—handed out to people under 17, I might add, often for quite trivial things a long time ago—accounted for 139. That covers 180 people. Almost exactly the same number of people were convicted under section 134 as were convicted under section 135. One hundred and seventy were fined or had other minor punishments and 175 came under the minor offences. It is almost a perfect match. I do appreciate—and I am sure the Minister would wish to point this out—that in truth it is not a perfect match. Maybe some people who were imprisoned were covered by section 134. It was quite a small number, admittedly, but it is a vanishingly small number, I suggest.

We in the National Party are saying that we are taking a firm line on this. We are saying that we will consider and, indeed, vote for the ability to reapply, provided people have not had a term of imprisonment. I think that actually directly addresses the issues that have been raised by the vast majority of people who have contacted members right across Parliament. I know there will be some outside the parameter, but the vast majority, as is clear from the figures I have read out, are covered by the select committee report.

I want to make it perfectly clear that the members of the select committee were pretty firm on this, and the reason why the Minister is putting in a Supplementary Order Paper, which would allow imprisonment to be covered, is that the select committee did not think that imprisonment should be included. That was the view of the members of the select committee, and it is the Government, through the Minister, that has said: “We can be more liberal. We can allow people to drive taxis even though they have been in prison.”

💬 Hon Harry Duynhoven: No, you can allow them to apply.

I suggest to the Minister that that is in fact a misunderstanding of the law. If the rules are set down, then effectively no discretion is given to the director. If there was a judicial review, the judge would decide on the basis of the rules set down. Effectively, the director would not have discretion. I know the law reads the way the Minister feels it does, but in fact, it would not be applied that way in any event.

The select committee was very clear, by consensus, that imprisonment was the threshold. Someone who had been in prison could not apply; someone who had not been in prison could apply. An application in this circumstance was the same as having a re-grant. National is saying that we can deal with virtually every single one of the 175 out of 234 cases that matter because in virtually every one, all the offenders got was a fine or other punishment.

Government members have mentioned imprisonment. It is worth noting that imprisonment covers older people. Younger people got borstal. So where the victim, if one can call the person that, was 15, and the other person was 17, the offender was too young to be imprisoned. Where there is a broader age range or bigger gap between offender and victim then imprisonment tends to be levied. That is a proper distinction to make, and that is why the select committee specifically did not include borstal. We wanted to allow people who were effectively in custody in borstal to be able to apply—for the very reason that borstal covered young people, and that was our particular concern. I suggest to the Minister that that covers virtually all of the people who came to members of Parliament across the parties.

National members are voting for clause 3 on principle as it is in the select committee report, because we think that it gets the balance right. We are saying very clearly to those 175 people that if they apply they will get their licences back, if they have not had a term of imprisonment. I tell the Minister that that is effectively how it will happen—

💬 Hon Harry Duynhoven: Apply for consideration, not automatically.

Well, I know the Minister says that, but in truth it will not be applied that way in reality. Under a judicial review, a court would say that those are the criteria and if there is no reason not to give the licence, the licence must be given back. The criteria set by Parliament here today, I suggest, are, as a matter of interpretation of the law, equivalent to an application.

💬 Simon Power: Why doesn’t this member continue for another 5 minutes?

I think that is a reasonable interjection. I think the points have been well made as to why we have taken the position that we have. We will be supporting clause 3 in order to be able to provide the appropriate remedy to the people who have contacted various members of Parliament.

I thank Wayne Mapp for that great exposition of what is actually happening here, but I think there is something that we tend to forget when we are looking at a clause from a Labour Government that tries to put in a term of imprisonment. The Labour Government has made it quite clear that it does not want to imprison people, so why does it need a clause about imprisonment? It is not going to put people in prison. People are going to be—

💬 Hon Member: Catch and release.

Yes, a catch and release policy. The clause that Mr Anderton is putting forward is quite redundant because it is not going to be the reality of the situation. There is also the situation that a lot of the crimes that have been committed—in the cases that came before the members of this Parliament—are actually cases where, in the past, there would be a conviction, but the evidence we had from the select committee was that in these cases there would now no longer be convictions in the courts for those offences, because they are not being prosecuted. There certainly will not be imprisonment, or borstal as it was in those days for the younger offenders, because they are just not being convicted for those kinds of offences. So it is quite redundant to put in a clause looking simply at imprisonment for a 12-month period.

In the select committee, we considered that 12-month threshold quite extensively. It was felt that there was no need for that kind of level. In fact, a lot of the Labour members felt that a 6-month level was more appropriate. When they were talking about a 6-month level, that was fine—they had a couple of cases in mind that fitted in with that 6 months—but it has now been extended to 12 months because they have thought of another couple of cases that they want to get covered.

What happens about the guy tomorrow who goes out and wants a P endorsement licence and who was sentenced to imprisonment for 13 months, 40 years ago? Are we then going to come back and do this all again and extend the time to 14 or 15 months? That is the problem when people try to make a line in the sand on the basis of retrospective cases. That is all they are trying to do in this case. It is not good law looking forward to people and circumstances of the future, it is trying to catch certain cases that have come before people in the last couple of months.

Labour members have brought up some other questions in their speeches. There is the question of consistency. I think National members are being totally consistent. We are saying that for people who were existing drivers with offences, we will provide a mechanism so there can be some kind of resolution to their problem. But we are also being totally consistent with the intention of the 2005 legislation. Its intention was to have a strict prohibition so that people had to go through a long and detailed process in order to keep the integrity of the profession and people involved in the industry.

On 10 May 2005, the honourable Minister said: “The bill also prohibits persons convicted of serious violence and sexual offences from being passenger service drivers. That will address the risk to public safety of having convicted sex offenders and other violent offenders in a one-on-one situation with passengers. I note that the select committee recommends that the scope of that provision be extended to cover offences committed prior to the commencement of this bill.”

That is the heart of the problem. The initial bill last year was looking at new drivers coming forward. Then under the guise of the select committee, it was decided to go back and look at existing drivers, as well. Concentration on existing drivers is the problem. The problem was not in looking at new drivers last year. It was a good piece of law. It knew what it wanted to achieve—it wanted to protect people hopping into taxis or on buses. That change can be remedied by having a Supplementary Order Paper passed tonight that makes a definition between existing and new drivers. That is totally consistent with what members wanted to achieve last year, with what the public wants to see happen, and with the public opinion expressed earlier this year when people felt they were in a situation where the law was not providing an opportunity to recognise their past for their industry now. That is why National is promoting the dual between the existing and the new. We think it is important that that break is made.

One of the problems with the National Party is that it is not placing sufficient trust in the Director of Land Transport to use his or her discretion in this matter.

💬 Shane Jones: They need to be more humanitarian.

Yes. The Director of Land Transport will obviously be in the firing line if he or she gets it wrong, so he or she will spend a lot of time on each case. Wayne Mapp goes on about not trusting people who have committed serious offences, but I suggest that the director will go through the process by looking at the seriousness of the offence, the penalty applied, and the length of time that has passed since the offence was committed—and other factors will be taken into consideration.

In terms of the seriousness of offences, we have looked at the ones that are at the lower end of the scale. There has been a lot of talk about carnal knowledge offences, which are not deemed to be so serious these days, and about the penalty for those offences. Even in the past, when they were treated more seriously, the penalty was not great. So the director will have an easier road ahead in terms of granting an exemption in those cases. Then we go on to what we consider to be the more serious offences. In my second reading speech I mentioned a person who was convicted of aggravated robbery. Obviously, aggravated robbery is a serious offence, but one has to take into account the penalty. In the case I gave, the person convicted of aggravated robbery, who is in the taxi industry right now, received a penalty of 6 months’ periodic detention. So, clearly, the Director of Land Transport would say that that person was at the lighter end of that serious offence, given that he received only 6 months’ periodic detention, and other factors would be taken into consideration, as well.

Details I provided of another case involve somebody who was convicted of a crime—whose case would come under clause 3—and who wants to get into the industry and drive disabled people around. This person has a great aptitude in that direction—good empathy—but he had received a more serious sentence of 3 years in jail. Unfortunately, even under Jim Anderton’s amendment bill, that person would not get into the industry, although the Greens would like the director’s discretion to go further in order to allow that. If the Green approach had been adopted, the Director of Land Transport, again, would say: “It is a very serious offence. I will have to look at that case very closely. This person has a hard road—3 years’ imprisonment—to justify the circumstance.” The director would then go on to consider the third factor, which is how long ago the offence was committed. In the example I gave, the offence happened 25 years ago. When one talks about 25 years ago in terms of the aggravated robbery conviction with 3 years’ imprisonment, or the other example I provided, of aggravated robbery with 6 months’ periodic detention, both of those cases happened many years ago—one case was 30 years ago and the other case was 25 years ago. Presumably, the Director of Land Transport would have plenty of supporting evidence from people who had known those people over the years, and could make a fairly good judgment. I have no doubt that the director would err on the side of caution, given the concern in the community about taking too many risks with people driving others around—be it in a taxi or in a bus. It can be worked out if one trusts the Director of Land Transport. Somebody who committed a crime 25 or 30 years ago may even be a member of Parliament—who knows? In respect of this bill, people do not seem to need the same qualification to become a member of Parliament as they do to become a bus driver or a taxi driver.

I listened very closely to Hone Harawira’s very good speech in the second reading debate. One thing we have to bear in mind is that people often commit those crimes in their youth; they are often tearaways who get out of control due to bad parenting, or whatever the problem is, and they overcome that disadvantage later in life, come right, and really star in society. Those people should be given a chance. As we all know, a high proportion of those people—50 percent of our prison population—is Māori. So if someone goes ahead and says, as National does, that no one who has ever been in prison should be given any discretion, that person is being a bit discriminatory.

I want to talk briefly on clause 3 about an issue that has been bothering me. In 1960, and around that time, sexual abuse and indecent assault were not taken very seriously, either by the police, by the community, or by the nation. Now they are taken seriously, thank God.

I do not believe for one minute that I would want somebody who has had even a 1-month conviction in 1960 driving my daughter around in the dark of night, because I am not sure whether he would do it again. He did it once, so there is always a chance that he could do it again. Keith Locke says that carnal knowledge is not such an issue these days. Well, it is if one’s daughter is 14, it is if one’s daughter is 13, and it is if one’s daughter is 12. It does not matter whether the encounter was consensual. What we now know and believe in society is totally different from what we believed in 1960 and before. Speaking as a parent and as a dad, I say that it does not matter how old my daughter is; she could be 45 and I would still not want her to be driving around in the dead of night with some person who has been imprisoned—whether it was for a month or even for 5 days—for an offence that we now take to be serious. We might not have taken that offence seriously in 1960, but we do take it seriously these days.

I have heard a number of the speeches tonight and before the dinner break, and what strikes me is that we are talking about just taxi drivers or just bus drivers. What about women? What about all those people out there who actually think: “Well, hang on. I’m actually quite scared, because I am the one who has to take the cab. I am the one who has to take the bus home late at night after finishing my 12-hour shift at the Warehouse.” It is those people whom we should be thinking of. There are more of them out there than just those 230-odd people the law is being changed for. Four million people live in this country, and we are changing a law for 230-odd people. It is a bad law anyway, and I am glad I was not here in the last term, because it is not my fault that the legislation was passed; it is the fault of everybody who was here.

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: Those hopeless members!

Hopeless members of Parliament, and I hear from my esteemed colleague Dr Wayne Mapp that he voted for it.

💬 Hon Harry Duynhoven: Not only that; he was on the select committee.

He was on the select committee, as well. At least he is trying to fix the thing up. There are 4 million people out there, and we are changing an anomaly for 230—[Interruption] Mr Harawira butts in and says “Shut up.” We are changing the law for 230 people, and Hone Harawira is feeling good about himself only because Keith Locke tried to butter him up by saying that his speech was a good speech. Well, I wonder what the Greens want from the Māori Party—but that is not what we are here to talk about.

Out of the 230 people, only 175 actually matter, because those people got a fine, not an imprisonment. I ask Dr Mapp whether I am right.

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: Yes, you are.

Absolutely, thank you for that. So we are fixing up a law for 175 people. For goodness’ sake, have we not got anything better to do other than to fix up things for 175 people? We are worried about their careers—their livelihoods. Well, hang on, what about all the women out there? What about all the young girls out there?

💬 Hon David Parker: We are worried about justice.

Mr Parker says that he does not care about all the women and girls out there. I want to know why we are allowing people who have already had a fine or even an imprisonment—

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: Especially an imprisonment.

Hon TAU HENARE:—especially an imprisonment—to be driving our daughters around—

💬 Steve Chadwick: Or sons.

Absolutely, I agree with the member—as far as I am concerned, as a parent.

Well, I think that is the first time for about 8 years that I have listened to Tau Henare and have agreed in part with what he had to say. He has reflected—fair go to the guy—to some degree the public’s concern. But, as usual with Tau Henare, he has taken it one step too far. We are fixing up this law because—

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Because you didn’t do the job properly in the first place.

—we did not do the job properly in the first place. It was not him; I will excuse the honourable member. We did not do the job properly, and now we are trying to fix it up.

It is not because 175 people or however many have missed out. That is the number of people who are affected by our botch-up directly, but those people might well have been driving their cabs for years and been perfectly safe and highly regarded by their communities. I have had letters and phone calls from people with regard to the case of at least one person, who is a decent, law-abiding guy. When he was 17 he had a sexual relationship with a girl who was just under 16, and now we are taking his livelihood away from him. That is why we are fixing up this law, and why we have to fix it up.

New Zealand First will be supporting the Minister’s amendment to clause 4. We will not be supporting the Jim Anderton amendment to clause 3. The simple reason is that we want to accommodate as best we can people who are of no real danger to public safety. They have been caught by this “young love” effect—I will use that term; people can use more basic terms if they like—caught by that sort of administration. Many of them went to borstal or detention centres, and one, two, or half a dozen went to prison. At the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee—and I think the National Party members on the committee will recall this—I was opposed to supporting the part of the legislation relating to prison. I drew the line at what we might call youth punishment. But since that time the Minister has clarified exactly who is being affected, and we see merit in widening the net.

This bill is about where we draw the line. That is what we are arguing here. It is not if we will draw the line, but where we will draw the line. I notice that Wayne Mapp made reference to a member in his contribution a little while ago. I will own up to being, I think, that member, whom he implied had wanted to support a murderer. That is not true, at all. What I pointed out—in a fictitious case, I believe—was that a man came home and saw his wife in bed with his best mate. He assaulted his best mate and killed him, and was put in prison for murder. I was trying to point out to the honourable member that if he had not killed him—or in modern-day parlance, he probably would have been found guilty of manslaughter—it would have made a difference under this bill, as manslaughter is not specified. It is not regarded as a serious enough crime. There is no offence of assault in this bill. There is assault to rob, but not assault because it is not regarded as a serious crime under the bill. So I am trying to illustrate to the honourable member on the select committee the difference between a murder in those sorts of circumstances and what would have happened if he had not killed the guy. I was trying to illustrate how difficult it is to draw the line.

The underlying point is that we should draw the line on the court judgment. We are safer there if we draw the line on the court judgment rather than on what we see as the offence. I left the select committee and said that we would draw the line at youth punishment, which is covered by a new section 29A(4), to be inserted into the Land Transport Act 1998 by clause 3 of the bill. It states: “imprisonment excludes—(a) corrective training; or (b) borstal training; or (c) detention centre training”. That is where we drew the line. I accept the Hon Harry Duynhoven’s Supplementary Order Paper and I have taken it to my caucus. It said we should move the line that much further for the retrospective guys—the guys who are actually driving now or who have been driving until now—but not for the guys who will be in this position in the future. We keep the line at youth punishment for forward planning for people, but for the retrospective guys we would let in those who have been convicted of offences carrying a sentence of short-term imprisonment of under a year. We think that is quite reasonable and quite sensible. It lets through those people whom we, in Parliament, in haste, condemned.

I am quite surprised at, and actually quite disappointed in, what we have just heard from the member from New Zealand First. I am surprised in the sense that New Zealand First members have changed their tune within an hour. It must have been something they ate for tea. Just before the dinner break, when National members proposed that we have a distinction between new and existing drivers to whom this legislation is applicable, we were told by New Zealand First that to do so would be inconsistent and we should not do it. We were told that we must have one rule, and it should apply to all. Now New Zealand First is coming back and saying that it would give existing drivers the 12-month criterion, but for new drivers there would be no 12-month criterion, and that New Zealand First would be tough on the new ones.

Well, that is what National is proposing in our Supplementary Order Paper 17. That was what was agreed on in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, and that was, I think, the essence of the legislation passed last year. I implore New Zealand First: we have another hour, so it should go all the way and go back to what it actually agreed on last year. It should give all people the certainty of knowing that they will be looked after, of knowing that they can trust that when they hop in a taxi or on a bus they will be looked after to the degree they expect. It is in your hands now. You have moved halfway; you can go all the way.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The member is bringing the Chair into the debate.

That is the essence of what National members are trying to do in our Supplementary Order Paper. We know that we cannot just draw a line in the sand and pick 12 months or 6 months out; we need to have a policy that is effective for the future. The only way we can do that is by having something—as we have provided—that defines the situations for new and existing drivers, and having different rules for people in each situation.

We have no problem with existing drivers. We understand the concerns of people who are in such an occupation, who have been hurt by the legislation going through, and who want to give some substance to their career. We are willing to give that substance and to provide that amendment. But we think the true intention of Parliament with the amendment Act of 2005 was to set up a new regime for all the people coming into the industry in the future. We think that the way we can give credit to the people who stood up in Parliament last year and promoted those ideals is to have separate criteria for new and existing drivers.

New Zealand First has shown that that can be done conceptually. Those members have no problem with having separate criteria for new and existing drivers. Their only problem now is the thresholds. Well, who will make the threshold decision now? Are we making it on the basis of 200 cases that have been put in front of us? What about the next 200 cases next year? What about the 200 cases after that? Will this threshold move just for the sake of it? Are people willing to get into cars or on to buses at night by themselves without the protection of a threshold, but knowing that there is a true concept that they will be looked after and protected through an industry-wide approach? That is the essence of the break between new and existing drivers.

I encourage people to look at the spirit of what we are doing here tonight and at the spirit of what members did last year. There was nothing wrong with that spirit. We have to refine that spirit to engage with cases that could come up potentially, but we need to keep that spirit there for the future. We need to have that break between new and existing drivers, and to put a tougher threshold on new people coming into the industry, because that supports what New Zealanders want to see in the future. When people hop into a taxi they are in a position of weakness, and they want to know that they will be looked after. That is the trust they put in that driver. The drivers want to have that respect, and we want to be able to give them that respect, as well. So I ask members to look at the spirit of what we are doing and vote for the amendments on Supplementary Order Paper 17, which distinguish between new and existing drivers. There can be no inconsistency issues. New Zealand First members have shown they are willing to move on that. All that they are debating now is the threshold that they want to apply to that distinction.

I will not speak for long. I thank Mr Brown for his gracious remarks. That is the most gracious he has ever been towards myself since 1993. I thank him for that—and it was only half gracious, but never mind. I want to ask a question, maybe not of the Minister—he is one of the few Ministers I have a bit of faith in—but of Mr Peter Brown. When he talks about murder and wanting to get the threshold right, and moving it this way and that way, the question for New Zealand First really is: are they going to support David Bennett’s Supplementary Order Paper?

💬 Peter Brown: No.

I see—they are having it both ways. If they flipped over the Supplementary Order Paper, they would see that “specified serious offence” means “(a) murder;”, and that is what he was talking about. Nowhere in what they did last year, in 2005 when they got it wrong, and waited for the newbies to come along and fix it—

💬 Peter Brown: Murder’s in there.

Oh, no. The member said, and everybody heard him, that murder was not in there. The member said—and I might be going deaf—

💬 Peter Brown: You’re getting old.

I might have a bit of dementia at the age of 44, or 45, or whatever it was, but the fact of the matter is that that member said that there was no mention of murder. That is what his words were, and I would love to see the Hansard. I apologise if I am wrong—it is highly unlikely, but I do. The only way we will make a line in the sand is by supporting the Supplementary Order Paper in the name of David Bennett. It sets it out quite clearly—new and old. The new ones cannot apply. Am I right?

💬 David Bennett: Yes.

Absolutely, and that is what we are trying to do. But the member from New Zealand First does not want a bar of it. He wants to support the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper. He wants to support the Labour Government because, I suppose, it is part of the baubles of power. I do not know.

💬 David Bennett: He won’t support them on the new ones, though.

Well, he will not support them on the new one either. I am trying to find out what Mr Brown’s position is.

💬 David Bennett: It depends on the case in front of him.

So who decides whether it should be in or out?

💬 David Bennett: It depends on whether someone has come to him and said he or she is voting for New Zealand First

OK. So it all depends on whether someone comes before New Zealand First. So New Zealand First is now not only the judge and the jury but also the head of some sort of committee of moralistic people—they will decide. That is what they want to do, rather than fixing up a piece of legislation—and it would be easy to fix it with the Supplementary Order Paper, and then vote for it. There is nothing in the Supplementary Order Paper from David Bennett that is going to make this law any worse—in fact, it will make it better—than it is now. So I cannot understand—

💬 Peter Brown: Read it.

I have read it. I have read both pages of it. It is a great little Supplementary Order Paper. But the fact of the matter is that the Supplementary Order Paper allows people who have been in the industry for a long, long time and who have a minor infraction to carry on, so that we do not take their livelihood away. But it says to all the new people and the existing people that they cannot apply for it if they have done one of these things. That is all it says. So how can people be against it? That is all I ask.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 17 in the name of David Bennett to insert new subclause (1AA) in clause 3 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question that the amendment be agreed to.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Can I just caution members about the taking of votes. No other comment at all is allowed. I ask members to look at Speaker’s ruling 63/2, made by Speaker Hunt, and also at Speaker’s ruling 63/5. It is highly disorderly to interject, because it can be taken as intimidation and could lead to a breach of privilege. So I am just cautioning members.