Land Transport Amendment Bill

I move, That the Land Transport Amendment Bill be now read a third time. The bill is designed to lower the current adult drink-drive limits, demonstrating that the Government does have a commitment to improving road safety in New Zealand, making Safer Journeys, the Government’s 10-year road strategy programme, all that much stronger. Safer Journeys was a vision to improve the safety on our roads and to see those roads become freer of death and serious injury. Although we celebrate the lowering of a road toll, this year some 250-plus people have died on our roads in the 12 months. If that were to happen as a single event, it would be a total tragedy that would paralyse the nation. It is important that we continue to look for ways to reduce death and serious injury on our roads.

As part of the strategy, the identification of drink-driving was an area of high concern. The second Safer Journeys action plan set out the Government’s intention to make a decision on drink-driving limits before the end of 2013. After considering the results of the research, which Cabinet required to be done back in 2010, and taking a series of other types of advice, the Government moved to introduce the Land Transport Amendment Bill to reduce the drink-driving limits for adults. The Land Transport Amendment Bill will reduce the breath-alcohol limit from 400 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath to 250 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath. The blood-alcohol limit will reduce from 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood to 50 milligrams.

Research has shown that the cognitive abilities of drivers do become impaired at levels below the current limit for adult drivers. This bill seeks to reduce that risk. Work undertaken by officials suggests that lowering the limit will also reduce drinking and driving over the current limit. This seems to be an experience where the limit has been lowered in other countries. New Zealand, in fact, is well placed to capitalise on reduced limits because there is a strong enforcement regime in place. As crash risk increases exponentially with increasing alcohol levels, even a modest reduction in the level of offending by drivers over the current limit can result in significant road safety benefits. Such a shift in behaviour has been observed in the lower number of young drivers detected drinking and driving, following the Government’s initiative to introduce a zero alcohol limit for young drivers. Lowering the adult drink-driving limits will send a clear signal that consuming alcohol at high levels when driving is unacceptable. This should save lives. It will reduce injuries. Officials have estimated conservatively that an average of 3.4 lives will be saved and 64 injuries prevented each year.

Although the intention is not a money saver, it is worth noting that this will mean a net benefit of over $200 million over 10 years. It will also mean that many, many families that might suffer the tragedy of a loss like this and the effects that it has on them will be spared that particular agony. The bill will also put in place an infringement offence regime for drivers who fall between the new and the old limits. The infringement regime will provide a strong deterrent for drivers caught between those limits. The imposition of a $200 infringement fee and 50 demerit points is not a soft option. Any driver who accumulates more than 100 demerit points from driving offences within a 2-year period receives a 3-month driver licence suspension. Finally, the bill contains amendments of a technical nature that support the policy aims.

Over recent years public attitudes towards drink-driving have changed markedly. I think the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee has done a very good job in taking this bill and putting it into a form that is reasonable and workable, and I am grateful for the wide support across the House. There was a member’s bill in the name of Iain Lees-Galloway that some said moved the Government to action. The reality is that we were well down the track, and although I commend the member for expressing through his member’s bill the same sentiments and concern that the Government has exercised in bringing this bill to the House, I think it is worth noting that there are few in this House who would not see this as a positive move in our community.

There will be those out there who say that it is too restricting on people, etc. Well, all I will say is that there is no restriction in this bill on enjoying yourself out of your home in a public place where alcohol is being served; it is simply a restriction on what you may do behind the wheel of a car after such consumption. So people need to think their way through their travel plans, etc. I think that is actually happening right across New Zealand. More responsible attitudes are being taken. So it is appropriate that between the two limits—the old limit at 80 and the new one at 50—it becomes an infringement. It sits there to serve as a reminder to people that once you go past that 80 limit, you are in a very impaired state and should not be behind a wheel. I do thank the House for the widespread support that I would expect the bill to get toward the conclusion of this debate. It is a good piece of legislation and it will be good for New Zealand. Thank you.

It is good to follow on in this debate and I want to respond to some of the things that the Minister of Transport has said about this Land Transport Amendment Bill. Labour is supporting this bill, as we have supported bills that have included these measures, going right back to 2009. I am going to talk more about the specific provisions in the bill and why we support them, but I think it is worth taking a minute or two just to reflect on the provenance of this bill. The Hon Gerry Brownlee talked about how the Government had been considering all of the international research about lowering the blood-alcohol limits and weighing up the research before it proceeded with this bill. Well, in my humble opinion, the research that actually informs this bill was Iain Lees-Galloway’s member’s bill being pulled from the ballot. That was the thing that spurred the Minister into action; it was the prospect of Iain Lees-Galloway’s bill that would have lowered the blood-alcohol limits in exactly the same way that this bill does. The prospect of that bill gaining majority support in this House would have been a political embarrassment for the Government.

We have seen for 5 years since Darren Hughes’ bill in 2009, which would have had pretty much the same effect as this, prevarication by this Government—not checking the research in Australia, the US, or anywhere else around the world. Actually, the reason that this Government did not progress this issue for those 5 long years is that it did not want to be seen as a nanny State. Steven Joyce was so concerned about the optics of actually lowering the blood-alcohol limits and the thresholds that are contained in this bill that he was not prepared to entertain the prospect of lowering the limits. That says a lot about this Government. Steven Joyce, himself, I think, said publicly that you could drink three-quarters of a bottle of wine and still, under the current law, be able to legally get behind the wheel. To say that publicly and then for 5 long years not actually proceed with this long overdue reform, I think says a lot. It is not at all about the international research; it was simply about Iain Lees-Galloway’s member’s bill being pulled out of the ballot. That is why the Government brought this bill to the House and has finally squeaked it through in the dying hours of this parliamentary term. That is a pretty half-hearted effort, you would have to say.

The purpose of this bill, just to recap, is to address the problem of drink-driving with a number of amendments, including lowering the adult legal blood-alcohol limit from 400 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath to 250 micrograms. So that is from 400 micrograms down to 250 micrograms for a breath test, and from 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood to 50 milligrams—so from 80 milligrams to 50 milligrams for a blood test. That will, without a doubt, make a very significant difference. As the Minister pointed out, the data shows that there is an exponential increase in fatalities and casualties on the road from drink-driving, from a modest but steady increase in alcohol consumption of those people who get behind the wheel. So it makes a lot of sense, we believe, to lower the limits in this way and it will make a really significant difference to the carnage on the roads.

There are some very interesting statistics about the cost of drink-driving. It is one of the major causes of road accidents in New Zealand—an annual average, according to the Ministry of Transport, of 61 fatalities, 244 serious injuries, and 761 minor injuries every year. That is an extraordinary roll-call of social harm, disruption, and loss that people and families face all over this country, caused by drink-driving. Economists have calculated that the financial cost of these injuries and fatalities is $446 million. That is the cost of drink-driving every year. That is a massive cost to the country. What the officials advised was that lowering the legal blood-alcohol limit in the way that this bill does will save, on average, 3.4 lives every year—3.4 lives saved every year. Imagine that: since 2009, if Darren Hughes’ bill had been pulled from the ballot and supported in this House, 3.4 lives could have been saved every year for the last 5 years. That is the cost of the delay and prevarication that we have seen. As for the other savings, this bill should, according to the projections, save on average 64 injury-causing crashes from happening and $200 million in social costs of fatalities and casualties over a 10-year period. That is a massive cost-benefit gain that we should see from the passage of this legislation.

One of the interesting things about this bill—and I know that it was debated at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee at length—is that the Government chose, with this bill, rather than just lowering the blood-alcohol and breath limits, to set up a civil infringement regime for offences that fall between the old limits and the new limits. Call me thick, but I have yet to hear in the previous debates, including in the Committee stage, when we repeatedly asked the Minister in the chair to get up and take a call—and I really did not find in the Minister’s explanation of the justification of the civil infringement regime in his contribution a very clear or compelling explanation about why. He said—and I think his words were—there is a $250 fine, and the number of demerits that you would get is not the “soft option”. Well, to be frank, it is the soft option. By definition, it is the soft option. What this bill does is it sets up a hierarchy between the criminal offences that exist from zero to the old limits, and a civil infringement regime between the old limits and the new limits. It clearly is the soft option and I am not sure why, and I would be interested to hear from the members opposite another attempt at an explanation as to why they have gone down this track. It clearly sets up a two-tier infringement system, and it is not clear to me why the Government would want to do that.

There is no doubt that, really, in our adult lifetimes there has been a massive social change on the question of drink-driving. As the Minister himself said, public attitudes now are far, far less tolerant of people who want to drink and drive. I think there is an acceptance of the point he made that the general view now is that by all means, get drunk in your own home, go to a bar, go to a club or a restaurant, whatever, but it is no longer your God-given right to get behind the wheel and subject everybody else to the appalling risks that drunk-drivers pose on our roads.

I want to pay tribute to all of the work that has been done by people—by public health workers, by public servants working in the ministries and departments, by people who have done all of the host responsibility work, and by school teachers. There has been a tide of change on public attitudes on this issue, and it has had a very, very positive effect. I think that organisations like the Drug Foundation, for example, which has endorsed this bill, quite rightly and strongly say that this will have a really positive effect in terms of reducing the harm caused by drink-driving.

It is a shame that that member had to drone on for 10 minutes. It is a pretty effective reflection of the Labour Party and what it actually did in this area. It did nothing—absolutely nothing—when it was in Government. The Labour members stood there and did nothing, and then they sanctimoniously come into this House tonight and say “Oh, it could have been done a lot earlier. Why hasn’t this been done?” Nine years under Labour, and drink-driving did not change in the time that the Labour Party was in Government. It did nothing. That is the Labour Party of old. Then the Labour members vote for this Land Transport Amendment Bill, and then the next sanctimonious bit was to say that they do not know why there are two tiers in it. That is what they wanted, that is what they are going to vote for, and that is what the bill has. So how can you be for the bill and at the same time hop on your high horse at this point and be seen to be something other than what you are?

The reality is that Labour did nothing. National came in, we looked at the evidence, we went through it, and we have made a decision, and it is the right thing for New Zealanders. It is something that is balanced, in the sense that we have an infringement regime so that New Zealanders can work through this process, and then they go through the process of a full criminal offence if somebody is above the higher limit.

This is a good bill, it is what New Zealanders have been looking for, and it is a balanced approach. This is a Government that does something. It does not stand up and say things, and then, when it has its chance, does nothing.

It is always a pleasure to follow David Bennett in the debating chamber. Labour wholeheartedly supports this legislation, the Land Transport Amendment Bill, and the concept behind it, which is to bring to an end legal drunk-driving. It is something to celebrate tonight that on 1 December this year it will no longer be legal to get behind the wheel of a car whilst intoxicated by alcohol.

But it has been a long time coming. David Bennett raises some interesting points, I think. The truth is that the evidence was first placed before the Minister of Transport by the Ministry of Transport in 2009. That is when the first tranche of evidence was made available to a Minister of Transport. It was in 2009, under the current Government. In fact, at the time the Hon Steven Joyce, who was the Minister of Transport, actually indicated that he was supportive of the change. He was the one who was going around and telling people just how much alcohol it was possible to consume and still be under the current legal limit. I have to say that I for one was not at first convinced when I heard about this. It was actually after a conversation with two National Party backbenchers who were privy to the information that Steven Joyce had, and who, I believe, had also participated in one of these kinds of anecdotal experiments—I suppose is a way you could describe it—and who said to me: “No, you really need to look at this issue of the drink-driving limit. It is possible to consume an enormous amount of alcohol and still be under the limit.”

That was from two National Party backbenchers. I will not name them. That would be embarrassing for them, but it was after that conversation that I went away and looked at the evidence and found that they were absolutely right. At the time I anticipated that the National Government was going to move on this, because the Minister of Transport had indicated that he thought it was something it needed to do. But somebody got to Steven Joyce, and there are a few names that do come to mind. It was those who were the chief exponents of the term “nanny State”, which was used so effectively by National Party members when they were in Opposition, and they just could not bring themselves to do anything that might appear to put themselves into that nanny State category that they had created for political gain.

So what did they do? They kicked for touch. For the sake of political expediency and for the sake of not being accused of engaging in nanny State policy themselves, they set aside something that was guaranteed to save lives. They said that the international evidence did not apply in New Zealand, and they needed to spend some time researching whether or not reducing the drink-driving limit would actually save lives in New Zealand. What that was really about, let us be honest, was kicking out this issue so that it would be addressed after the last election. That is what it was all about.

The Government had another opportunity. We have spoken a lot about how Labour drafted a member’s bill, and, yes, when it was drawn, it was in my name, but I was not the only one who held that bill in the ballot. When it was drawn it was in my name—and, yes, the Government did suddenly act rather swiftly after that bill was drawn. But the Government had an opportunity to act before then, and that was during the debate on the Alcohol Reform Bill. I put, by way of a Supplementary Order Paper, an amendment to the Alcohol Reform Bill to reduce the drink-driving limit. It was absolutely in order. For a lot of people who have been advocating for a reduction in the drink-driving limit, they saw it as part of the suite of measures that were required to reduce alcohol-related harm. Taking action on this absolutely fitted with what we were doing, and should have been doing, through the Alcohol Reform Bill.

Sadly, my amendment did not quite get the numbers. It missed out by one. The National Party, the ACT Party, and, I am sad to say, United Future, Peter Dunne, voted against it. But Peter Dunne was only really doing that because he felt that he had to stick with the Government, to which he gives confidence and supply. He said at the time, rather spuriously, I have to say, that the way to do this was not by amending the Alcohol Reform Bill; it was by amending the land transport legislation. I am glad to say that he realised he had to be good to his word, and when my bill, the Land Transport (Safer Alcohol Limits for Driving) Amendment Bill, was drawn from the ballot, Peter Dunne indicated that as it was indeed an amendment to the land transport legislation, he would support it. We had the numbers, so it was going to pass.

That was the point at which the Government finally kicked into action. The Government realised it was on the wrong side of public opinion, it was on the wrong side of the evidence, and it was very soon going to be on the wrong side of a vote in the House. That is what got the Government to finally move on this. Let us be absolutely clear and honest about that. That is what finally got the Government moving. Good! Are we not pleased that we are finally going to get there? On 1 December this year our drink-driving limit in New Zealand will move into line with most other Western nations. We will finally catch up with what most other Western nations are doing.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: No. Not right. Not correct.

Denis O’Rourke shakes his head. The only two that he can think of are the United Kingdom and the United States. We should not just follow them every single time. We are smarter than that. Australia, I am sad to say, did this decades ago. We are way behind our closest cousins, the country that we ordinarily compare ourselves to most often. We are decades behind them.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: Got it wrong.

No, it is absolutely right and I will be very pleased to hear how Denis O’Rourke will try to rebut that statement.

We are pleased that this bill is going ahead, but we do have a point of difference. We are not entirely convinced by this idea of having an infringement offence for those who are over the alcohol limit of 0.05 percent but under 0.08 percent. What Labour was originally proposing was simply to lower the limit and for it to be a criminal offence to be a drink-driver—to be drunk behind the wheel. That is what being over 0.05 percent is. It is being a drunk-driver. It should be, we on this side of the House think, a criminal offence to be a drunk-driver.

The Government has offered up a couple of different arguments for this. The Government says that the drunk-drivers who are least drunk cause the least amount of harm. Well, I am sorry but they are still a drunk-driver—they are still a drunk-driver. It has always been a criminal offence in New Zealand in the past to be a drunk-driver, and it should continue to be a criminal offence in New Zealand to be a drunk-driver.

The other thing the Government said is that it would clog up the courts with all the people who will drink in excess of 0.05 percent but under 0.08 percent. We would have to put them all through the court. That statement is based on an assumption that New Zealanders are fundamentally stupid and will not notice that the law has changed. Well, we on this side of the House believe that New Zealanders are pretty smart. They are informed. They are educated. They watch the news. They read the newspapers. They will know that the limit has fallen, and they will change their behaviour appropriately. We will not see the courts being clogged up with people who have been caught out, as the Government would say, by the change in the law.

We have not seen any strong evidence. We know that there are different regimes around the world, but we have not seen any evidence. The Minister did not refer to it. David Bennett did not refer to it. We have not seen any evidence that says that this regime is better than making it a criminal offence. We are open-minded. We are interested to see how it works, but if it is not working in the way we anticipated, we do need to come back and review it and ensure that we have done this right.

This bill is a step in the right direction. It has taken far too long. It is not the step that we would have taken, but we will support it because it is a significant improvement on the current situation where it is legal in New Zealand to drink and drive.

I rise to take a short call for the Greens on the third reading of the Land Transport Amendment Bill, which we also will be supporting. This bill—we need to be up front about it, really—was introduced by the Government as a direct response to Iain Lees-Galloway’s popular bill, which was drawn from the ballot and which we also supported because it fitted with the Green Party policy for a reduction in the blood-alcohol limit from 80 milligrams to 50 milligrams, or lower, per 100 millilitres of blood. This Government bill is softer, because although it reduces that level, it only sets infringement fines and demerit points for drink-driving at these lower levels, whereas Iain Lees-Galloway’s bill would have seen lower limits and some criminal consequences; disqualification for 6 months and a $4,500 fine or 3 months in prison. We are still supporting the Land Transport Amendment Bill, because it is going towards that goal, and we will watch with interest to see the public’s response.

I have lived in a country where there was a zero blood-alcohol limit and I have got to say, on a personal level, that I am a fan of that. You cannot get simpler than that. You cannot go wrong with that. You cannot go over the limit, because you know that actually you cannot drink at all if you are going to drive.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: Was that in Nazi Germany?

It was in Japan. It was very effective and very simple for people, and it caused no harm whatsoever. But this bill is progress, and therefore we support it.

New Zealand First supports tougher measures to curb the worst cases of drink-driving, but this bill, the Land Transport Amendment Bill, is badly targeted and is aimed at the drink-drivers who do the least harm. It leaves the real culprits alone. Some speakers have listed research and listed casualties without tying them back to these particular proposals. They would lower the breath-alcohol limit from 400 micrograms to 250 micrograms, and would reduce the blood-alcohol limit from 80 milligrams to 50 milligrams. Disobedience of these new limits is to be addressed only in the form of infringement notices, like it was a parking offence, on the grounds that they are in the least-serious range of offending. That is really the issue here. The people in this range, between the existing thresholds and the new ones proposed, are not the people who cause the deaths and the injuries. By far, most of the worst accidents are caused by the heavier drinkers, who are already caught by the existing law and who will be unaffected by this bill. So targeting the people who drink to only the extent covered by this new infringement offence is not likely to have the desired effect of reducing the death and injury rate on our roads to any significant extent.

It is really just another politically correct measure to make it look as though the Government actually cares about this issue—a belated attempt to upstage the Labour proposal. The lower infringement limits as proposed in this bill may, in fact, have an unintended, perverse effect. There will be some people who will convince themselves that drinking to between a blood-alcohol range of 50 milligrams to 80 milligrams or to between 250 to 400 micrograms per litre of breath when driving is an acceptable risk because it is only an infringement offence, for which a small fine and a few demerit points are incurred if the driver is caught. So this bill may end up actually having the opposite effect to that which is intended.

Although there is some evidence in research that shows driver impairment between the proposed limits and the existing limits, there is very little convincing evidence that most people are actually likely to harm themselves or others if they do so. In fact, the Australian experience is that that has very little effect. It is, therefore, clear to me that New Zealand’s existing alcohol limits in relation to driving are unlikely to be too high and that lowering them would be unlikely to be effective. This is also the position taken by the United Kingdom Government, and its drink-driving regime works very well indeed. So it is hard to accept that there is any sense in the measures proposed in this bill at all. We in New Zealand First believe that a better long-term effect could be achieved, firstly, by increasing the penalties for offending against the existing alcohol limits of 80 milligrams per 100 litres of blood and 400 milligrams per litre of breath. That is what the Government should be doing. That would make the worst drink-drivers really sit up and take notice. The point is that it is the deterrence that really matters, and there is very little deterrence in this bill.

Secondly, we want people to clearly understand that the possibility of being caught is actually a probability, by having more police on the road and more random breath tests. But this Government, which is soft on policing, will not spend the money needed to do that, but instead has taken the soft option we see in this bill. The proposed new infringement penalties do not reflect the seriousness of drink-driving, and that will certainly be noticed by people disposed to drinking and driving. The proposed breath-alcohol limit will not even be a criminal offence incurring the full force of the law, but will instead provide for only a small fine of $200 and 50 demerit points, and the new blood-alcohol limit will incur only a fine of $500 and 50 demerit points. Demerit points themselves may only eventually lead to loss of licence, so their effect as a deterrent is not immediate, which is what is needed for drink-drivers, and the fines are derisory and are clearly not an adequate deterrent at all.

The public does actually want stronger action and leadership on drink-driving than this Government is apparently prepared to take. New Zealand First wants higher penalties, to raise the stakes for the existing limits, which reflects public opinion, but in the end what we really need is a culture change towards having more sensible drinking habits, especially among young people. That change in achieving the road safety objective will not come from penalties that are perceived to be soft, as these will be. They must reinforce and underpin the process for social change and better drinking habits, along, of course, with continued education and promotional efforts. This legislation, in New Zealand First’s view, fails on all counts, and for those reasons we will vote against it.

Let me start by reiterating Labour’s support for the Land Transport Amendment Bill. We believe that this bill is worthy of support because we have long sought to have the legal alcohol driving limit reduced, and this bill finally does that. What it does is it begins to address the problem of alcohol-impaired driving with a number of amendments, including lowering the adult legal alcohol limits from 400 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath to 250 micrograms, or from 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood to 50 milligrams.

This 50 to 80 range has been talked about for some considerable time. Others have alluded to various journalists and other, what you might call, stunts that have shown that allowing that drinking range and that level of alcohol is actually allowing people, legally, to drive drunk—that people are sufficiently impaired to the point where they cannot drive a car safely and are a risk on the road. They are a risk to themselves and to other people, and that, I think, is generally accepted. I think most New Zealanders support this change. Most New Zealanders have wanted a lower limit for some considerable time.

I find it interesting that the last speaker, Denis O’Rourke, has opposed this measure on the basis that this is somehow less of a risk—you know, the number of deaths and accidents are lower, so therefore this is not worth addressing. I find that an extraordinary position to take. Acting on this issue of reducing the legal alcohol limit for driving, and dealing with the particular concern that has been sitting there and has been raised over and over again for some time now, does not mean that we should not take higher blood-alcohol levels very seriously and, in fact, look at the sorts of matters that the last speaker has spoken about. Are the sanctions for those higher levels high enough?

We certainly need to continue to focus on this issue. There are still people who continue to drive with excessive amounts of alcohol. In fact, what we can all see and know is that there is a terrible problem with recidivist drink-driving—people who are seriously impaired, or who have even been imprisoned and who get out and then drive again in that state. What that says is that one of the problems we have—and this came up in previous legislation where we have talked about the blood-alcohol limit—is that we do not use the opportunity that this bill provides for dealing with the issue of alcohol abuse.

This bill has not dealt with the issue. Previous legislation around younger drivers did not deal with the opportunity that was presented. When people are pulled over and caught for drink-driving it provides a real opportunity to intervene and to provide assistance to people who have an alcohol problem. In fact, many submitters on previous legislation said that this is the opportunity. Often when people have a drinking problem it will go unnoticed for a very considerable length of time, and, in fact, often the opportunity to intervene, and the first time that it might come to a family’s attention that somebody has an alcohol problem, is when they are picked up for drink-driving. We have not addressed that, and I think that that is a serious problem, because recidivist drink-driving is something we all know continues.

However, as I said, we support this bill. It has been a long time coming. It certainly was raised extensively when we were talking about the Law Commission work, Alcohol In Our Lives—that comprehensive report that it did and that we looked at. Many submitters and many people talking to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee at that time raised the issue of reducing the legal drink-driving limit.

Then again, of course, the issue was raised in the legislation that brought in changes to drink-driving for younger drivers. A former colleague had put this measure forward in a member’s bill, which was picked up by Iain Lees-Galloway. There was considerable support. What were the reasons for not doing anything at the time? Well, others have said that the Minister clearly did not end up with the political will, despite initially showing an interest in progressing it.

For whatever reason, we had all sorts of things said to the select committee, like despite the fact that there was significant evidence from other jurisdictions about the changes and the improvements that were made by reducing blood-alcohol levels—the saving of lives and the reduction of injuries—we were told that we needed specific New Zealand research on the matter. Frankly, that just seems nonsensical to me. What is it that is so different around drink-driving in New Zealand that would mean we had to have specific New Zealand research? The only thing at the time that people came up with was that we had a lot more rural roads, and that was the reason why we had to do all this additional research.

Finally, we are here. We have been out of step with almost every other Western nation. We do have some concerns, although we are supporting this bill, and other colleagues have raised them. It is the issue that the New Zealand First speaker has outlined, around whether the infringement regime is sufficient, whether it will work, and whether it is pitched appropriately. Well, it is better for us to start at least, do something, and make progress on what has clearly been a real issue and a real concern.

In the period of time between 2006 and 2008, 30 people—30 people—were killed in accidents where drivers were known to have a blood-alcohol content of between 50 and 80 milligrams. That is just the number of people who died. There would have been many serious accidents that were also within that range. The costs are not only obviously the deaths, but also the cost to the health system of serious injuries, and the emotional and other implications for families. That certainly is worth our taking action. It has taken far too long to do so.

So we do support this bill. I guess we will want to see how the infringement regime does end up working. I know that my colleague Darien Fenton is likely to raise concerns from the bill’s time in the select committee about how some of the issues around payment for blood tests are going to work out, and whether that will create some sort of strange set of circumstances, but I will let her talk about that.

I guess there is another parallel that really has struck me in looking at this bill, though, and I do want to finish by talking about another matter—a matter where we know there is a need for action and where the failure to act is costing people’s lives, causing serious harm and injury to people in this country, and is a cost to them and their family. That is the issue of violence against women and children. We know that there is a need to act. There is strong public support for taking action. Like this situation, we are well behind other Western jurisdictions in actually doing something. I say to the House that this is an urgent matter. This is an urgent matter—to deal with the problems associated with domestic and sexual violence as well. We can sit there and know that there is a problem. We can sit there and know that there are things we can do, and fail to act. In doing so, people’s lives are being lost and people are being seriously injured. There is a huge cost to them, their family, and the community.

Just to finish, we are glad this bill is finally before the House. It is a pleasure to support it tonight, here, at its third reading. I look forward to further action, particularly around eliminating violence against women and children.

I am surprised to find myself on my feet, having given my valedictory speech, but it is a pleasure to take a call in the third reading of this bill, the Land Transport Amendment Bill. It has been a long time coming. I think my colleagues have traversed the time frame over many years of this legislation. I do not want to spend too much time on this, because I think there is a very important bill coming up next, but I will be very, very pleased to see this legislation go through. As other colleagues have said, there are some concerns about some of the enforcement stuff and the regime around blood testing. However, we are pleased to see this bill come through, and I am pleased to take one of my very last calls in this Parliament to support this bill. Thank you.