Land Transport (Random Oral Fluid Testing) Amendment Bill

E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I rise to take a short call on behalf of the Green Party on the Land Transport (Random Oral Fluid Testing) Amendment Bill. I would like to state that if we are talking about harm reduction when it comes to drugs, we particularly, obviously, support regulations that reduce harm. So things such as impairment testing when it comes to driving are critical. We don’t want people driving impaired, but there is a difference between drug testing and impairment testing.

The issue with this bill as proposed is that it will not necessarily test for impairment of either prescription or illegal drugs. Indeed, the tests that are proposed to be used are slow, expensive, and identify only three types of drugs, and only will detect their presence, not the impairment that they may be providing. There is, therefore, a risk of false positives. We need a better strategy, and we need something that’s comprehensive and that works, and indeed something that picks up impairment.

So I would like to state that the Green Party MP and Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter—who, in her maternity leave absence, is being covered by the Hon James Shaw—is working with the Minister of Police, Stuart Nash, on what that comprehensive response would look like. I’d just also like to state that if members in the House are genuinely interested in cross-parliamentary work on drug-harm reduction, then they are more than welcome to join the group that I have been working to bring together for the past six-odd months. Kia ora.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker—I was going to call you Madam Chair there for a minute. It’s a real honour to take a call and to really build on the short speech by the Green member Chlöe Swarbrick. I want to just start by acknowledging the member who put this bill forward, Alastair Scott, and he’s here in the House, and just say that the coalition Government is opposed to it—I want to be upfront with that. When I first looked at it, I thought it was a tad mischievous—that’s the word I’ve found. It tries to play into that narrative of the Government being soft on crime, but I think it gets a big F, or Fail. I just want to say why.

Three points: one is that the Government won’t address drug harm in a piecemeal way. We’ve just had a big session around a certain drug, and so we’re not committed, certainly, to addressing it in a piecemeal way. The second point—and I’ll elaborate on this—is the impacts on Kiwis, and there are many. The third point is just the viability. Look, this isn’t a bill worthy of the time and the money required and all the extra effort not only to pass it but then to implement it. So those are the three reasons why, and if I have time I’ll finish off talking about what the previous Government really didn’t do, and that’s why we are standing here today, this evening, talking about this.

I go back to that first point—I said that we didn’t want to approach this in a piecemeal way. We do take drug harm very seriously. We’ve heard from some good speakers on the previous bill. We have committed to comprehensively responding to the Law Commission’s report Controlling and Regulating Drugs: A Review of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 and replacing it. So we have said that. We’ve also said that driving while under the influence of drugs is not solely a driving offence, endangering the lives of themselves and others; it is often also symptomatic of wider issues, including mental health and social influences. I think there’s lots of ways that we can address this far more comprehensively, and I’ll move on from that.

The impacts on Kiwis—in terms of the oral tests currently marketed, those that would be employed by this bill are expensive and unreliable. I’m happy to be challenged on that, but I’ve certainly talked to police. I’ve talked to others who carry this out, and those are the two words that I picked out from those conversations. Worse than that—and unfortunately the previous Government, the current Opposition, have done their finest at discrediting police senior staff, I must say—false positives would lead to mistrust, and I don’t want our police service further eroded by a bill, an operation, a way of working that would continue to tarnish their reputation. We do support roadside drug testing where the testing technology is fit for purpose. I want to say that—

💬 Hon Member: Can you hurry up?

—issues—

💬 Andrew Bayly: We’re waiting for something to be of relevance.

Keep calm. I’ve given you some really good issues there. Here is it: oral fluid roadside drug testing is likely to be a worthy investment, so you get a tick, although not one that warrants such a great expense where—dare I use that word again—reliability is questionable and a significant improvement is not seen over the current free testing method. What do you say to that? So until an alternative is available, this is not a bill worthy of the time and money required to pass and implement it.

Madam Assistant Speaker, I’m very pleased to take a call in this debate. I do acknowledge Alastair Scott for bringing this bill to the House; however, this bill falls short in a number of areas, as has already been canvassed in my colleague’s contribution.

Unfortunately, we will not be supporting this bill, because it is a suboptimal piece of legislation as it stands. The tests that are proposed are quite limiting. They are unreliable, they’re not as accurate, and rather than take a piecemeal approach by addressing a very narrow random oral fluid testing, as proposed by this bill, we want to take a wider approach as a Government. We’re looking at this area in a much broader sense, and so we’re not just focusing on a very narrow test, which will, arguably, only detect the presence of three types of drugs. We’re looking at it from a broader sense as a Government.

We want to take this matter of drug harm very seriously—as we do—and that’s why, under our Minister Andrew Little, we want to look comprehensively—as we are. We’re taking a good, close look at the Law Commission’s report Controlling and Regulating Drugs and are doing a comprehensive review of the Misuse of Drugs Act to look at a replacement for that. The Law Commission’s report will be providing a lot of guidance to the Government on that.

But, in addition to that, we have to look at wider bodies of work and not just pure, narrow testing, as is proposed by this bill. We’re looking at wider solutions for the drug problem, as I’ve said. We need to crack down on the actual supply and demand of these drugs, and that means breaking down the supply chain, being more aggressive at the border, and controlling the importation of precursors and the illicit distribution and networks which are involved in the distribution of these drugs.

So there are a wide range of issues that are involved in this area. It is very complex, and we’re also looking at the reasons behind things—whether we’re looking at our mental health review. There are a lot of complex issues involved, and merely just looking at a very narrow piece of legislation, which is only looking at quite an ineffective form of testing, does not go far enough. And that’s why we cannot support this bill. We want to look at it more comprehensively.

I do note the noble intention behind the bill that Mr Scott has brought to the House, but, as I said, this is a very complex area. There is a lot of work under way, under this Government, in a range of areas where we’re looking at all of the interconnected factors which create and give rise to instances where folks may be driving under the influence of drugs. And, as I’ve said, we need to look at all of those wider issues and look at them in a responsible and a measured way. Merely focusing on a narrow piece of legislation for testing drug-driving under the influence is not sufficient and does not go so far as we would. At this point in time, it doesn’t meet the objectives that we want to achieve, which is looking at this in a much broader sense.

So, with those remarks, we won’t be supporting this bill, but we know that as a Government we are doing much more expansive work which will get to the real cause of our drug use, and the proliferation of users who may be under the influence while driving—we will be able to come up with a more comprehensive set of solutions than this bill offers. So we oppose this bill.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I’m happy to take a call on the Land Transport (Random Oral Fluid Testing) Amendment Bill. Like that side of the House, we take drug harm seriously on our roads, as we do in our workplaces. But Labour, as my colleagues have outlined, clearly opposes this bill.

There are a couple of reasons I also want to touch on, particularly the findings of the Attorney-General, where the Attorney-General applied a couple of tests to this bill: one where he subjects a member’s bill to section 21 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act in terms of its right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure. The Attorney-General considers that the requirement to undergo one or more compulsory random oral fluid tests, as this bill is purporting to do, is inconsistent with section 21 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The Attorney-General then addresses the arbitrary detention nature of this bill in terms of putting people on the side of the road to test them. The Attorney-General concluded that the bill is disproportionate and may lead to a warrantless arrest if the person fails to comply, so therefore, in the Attorney-General’s view, it failed section 22 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. He also goes on to say that this bill does not meet section 25(c) of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

To the member, Mr Alastair Scott, the local member for Wairarapa, which is part of my electorate of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, we too on this side of the House take drug harm in terms of influence and driving seriously. As outlined, our Minister of Police and the Associate Minister of Transport, the Hon Julie Anne Genter, have got a comprehensive programme to address the issues that this particular bill is trying to address. But what I want to say is that in the proposer’s opening address, he talked about some findings or some evidence for why we needed to address the changes in the bill. One particular part he talked about was that the new regime, the actual Land Transport Act was implemented in 2009. I understand that some of the evidence that Mr Scott alluded to was in 2009, and it begs the question that if the issues around those pulled over or those dying on our roads through drug-related versus alcohol instances were identified in 2009, then it begs the question: why didn’t the Government of the day address it then?

Actually, what the Government at that time said was that the Land Transport Act, as it was stated in 2009, actually adequately addressed the issue of drug-related driving offences. So, therefore, Mr Scott might want to, in his reply, answer why the Government in 2009 didn’t address the outstanding issue that he’s identified through this bill.

Like I said, this side of the House has a comprehensive work programme to address and to enable our police officers the due tools and technology to ensure that we’re employing our police officers in the right areas. Until we can get adequate technology to address drug driving, which the Land Transport Act currently addresses, and the tools that it gives our police people and personnel, it is something that hasn’t quite yet been defined by the member in terms of what this bill is trying to address. The reasons why have been laid out; not just the Attorney-General’s test in terms of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, but also its impracticality in terms of the integrity of the testing regime and whether standing people on the side of the road for three to five minutes while they’re running the test is actually practical is yet to be explored and to be accepted on this side of the House.

Therefore, it’s clear that the coalition Government has made it really clear, and the Labour Party has made itself clear, that we will be opposing this bill. Kia ora tātou.

Alastair Scott, you have five minutes in reply.

The Government says they care—that they’re caring and they’re kind. The Prime Minister talks about being caring and kind and I agree with the sentiment. It’s all very well talking about caring for people, but it’s another thing doing something about it.

Unfortunately, this Government does not care about the drivers on our roads—most of us here in this room. Despite Minister Genter talking about having a zero road-death target, they are going to oppose this bill. They don’t care that there are 79 deaths of drivers who had drugs in them, as opposed to 70 who had alcohol. They don’t care about what the Automobile Association says about the effects of drug driving. They don’t care about what the police have said, despite some of them having said they have spoken to them—I would dispute that. Go and talk to the cops. They do not have the tools to adequately address the drug-driving problem.

They don’t care about the victims of drug-drivers, and they certainly are not caring about those people who will die as a result of drug-drivers by the time that lot organises some comprehensive—how many times was “comprehensive” discussed or initiated today?—review of drugs, whether it be supply—some of the members mentioned the supply—or distribution. Look, this is very simple. This is a very, very simple bill. This is about keeping people safe on our roads. This is about deterring drugged drivers from getting into their cars because they know that they can get away with it.

I’ll tell you what. I’ll address the three arguments that Minister Twyford had and that have been brought up recently. The first is the technology—that there’s not the technology to deal with the situation. Nonsense. Canada, the UK, and Australia all have saliva testing. The technology’s around. It’s been around for years. It’s a multimillion-dollar industry. The technology is available. They’re choosing not to read up on that issue. Section 21 of the human rights legislation, around arbitrarily holding people up for three minutes—for three miserable minutes—to save lives—that’s just too much! And I’ll get to another point in a minute. And, of course, the third reason Minister Twyford and others have said is the cost: 48 bucks a test. And I would argue that it’s actually about half of that.

But here’s the alternative. The alternative is the status quo, because that’s, essentially, what the Government is saying: the status quo is good enough; it’s OK. But here we have the status quo. We have drug-recognition experts amongst our police. We don’t have enough of them; there just aren’t enough. Why? It is because it’s expensive to train these guys. What do these guys do when they have a suspected drugged driver—the guy’s clean of alcohol but he’s blazed? What is the cop able to do?

He gets a drug-recognition expert—got to find him somewhere. He calls him down the road—there’s a couple of minutes. This cop has to do a 20-minute examination—20 minutes compared to three or four for a saliva test. Then the cop has to take him down to the police station—assuming he failed the physical test. That’s about touching your eyes and your ears and saying your name backwards and having some sense of what the time is around you. Failing that, the driver has to go down and get a blood sample. You’ve got to wake up a nurse or a doctor who’s on call to conduct the test. And these guys are saying three minutes is too long to hold a person aside and that it’s somehow a breach of their rights. And yet the cops are still able to pull a driver aside, not for three or four minutes but for 20 minutes and more, to get the tests done. And the blood results aren’t going to be instant, either. So the cost of that procedure is a lot more than $25—a lot more than $48, which is the number that Minister Twyford bandied around.

It is disappointing that the Government has voted against this simple piece of legislation that’s available in a number of countries and that would save lives if it was initiated. All these guys needed to do was chuck it in the select committee to enable that bill to be improved—to increase the number of drugs or reduce the number of drugs or increase that technology. On behalf of all the drivers in this country, it is very disappointing from a Government who say they care.