Land Transport Amendment Bill

We now move to Part 2. This is debate on clauses 14 and 15 and schedules 1 and 2.

Part 2 is appropriately titled “Technical and consequential amendments”, and it is a reasonably technical part of the Land Transport Amendment Bill, but it is indeed consequential. It is an exceptionally consequential part of the bill because it implements the changes that are held in schedules 1 and 2. The changes in schedule 1 are actually the guts of what this is all about. The changes in schedule 1 reduce the blood and breath-alcohol limits—in the case of breath replacing 400 micrograms with 250, and in the case of blood replacing 80 milligrams with 50. This really does go to the very heart of what this legislation is about, which is reducing the drink-drive limit in New Zealand.

I would like to traverse some more of the reasons why we are reducing the drink-drive limit in New Zealand and refer to some of the statements that have been made this afternoon. Denis O’Rourke accurately referred to “the drink-drivers who cause the least amount of harm”—I think that was the phrase he used. He referred to “the drink-drivers who cause the least amount of harm” and he was absolutely right when he referred to people who are at 80 milligrams of alcohol per litre of blood as drink-drivers, because they, in fact, are drink-drivers. They are drunk at that point, they should not be behind the wheel, and we should not tolerate drink-driving. Our law should not tolerate drink-driving and that is what schedule 1 is all about. It is about ceasing the legal tolerance of drink-driving. It does not matter whether the people who are between 50 and 80 milligrams, or between 250 and 400 micrograms in the case of breath, cause the least amount of harm or are at the lowest end of the scale of drink-driving. They are drink-driving, and it should be codified in our law that they are drink-driving.

I think the argument that just because people are a little bit drunk we should continue to allow them to drive under our law is not one that stands up in the court of public opinion. The changes held in schedule 1 actually ensure that in our law we have limits that ensure that people cannot legally be drunk and be behind the wheel.

The other reason you would make the changes in schedule 1 is that, as people have referred to, on average 3.5 lives will be saved every year, because that is the number of people killed by drivers who are between 50 and 80 milligrams, and it is really tangible that the evidence is very strong around that. However, there is a good case to be made that more lives than that will be saved by making the changes proposed in Part 2 under schedule 1. That is because when changes like this have been made overseas there has been a measurable reduction in the number of people who are severely intoxicated. That is because, as Mike Sabin pointed out, alcohol is a mind-altering substance, it impairs one’s ability to make good decisions, and once you are over 0.05, then your ability to make a decision about whether if you continue drinking you will still be too drunk to drive is impaired. By bringing the limit down it actually forces people to make a decision whilst they are still capable of making that decision, and what the experience has been overseas is that when that lower limit has come down, the number of highly intoxicated drivers has reduced as well, and that should have a positive impact on our road toll well beyond the known quantity, on average, of 3.5 lives saved per year.

I think in a way the Government is underselling this. There is actually a lot more opportunity. There is a lot more potential for lives to be saved because of the changes made in Part 2 of this legislation. It makes good sense to implement the changes held in Part 2, technical and consequential as they may be, because they are the very, very heart of this legislation, and these changes will save lives. For that reason, this House should wholeheartedly support them.