Land Transport (Drug Driving) Amendment Bill

Members, we now turn to the interrupted consideration in committee of the Land Transport (Drug Driving) Amendment Bill. When we were last considering this bill, Part 1 was being debated. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to take a call on the Land Transport (Drug Driving) Amendment Bill. This is a bill which the National Party supports and we don’t intend to spend too much time debating the various parts to this bill due to the fact that it is a piece of legislation, we believe, whose time has come. Actually, what we want to see is progress of this piece of legislation through Parliament in order to give the police the tools that they need to be able to undertake drug-driving tests on our roadsides as they do drink-driving tests. I do just want to acknowledge the fact that this piece of legislation has been a long time coming. I acknowledge former colleagues Alastair Scott and the Hon Nick Smith for their advocacy in bringing this bill to the House, but also the fact that it has taken quite some time to get to this stage where we are now debating it in the committee of the whole House. It has sat on the Order Paper for far too long.

The points that I wish to make really are the fact that this piece of legislation does make a positive difference in terms of providing, effectively, a regime whereby the police are able to undertake random roadside oral-fluid testing for drugs. There are, of course, then the infringement penalties and criminal penalties which are able to be put against people who are found to be in breach of those limits and then the subsequent consequences. Yes, it is a complex issue and I think that its complexities have been considered quite in depth when it went through the select committee stage where submitters were able to express their views and the bill has been improved. But the reality is now we’re at a point where actually what is important is that this legislation is passed, that the police are able to have the tools that they need to be able to actually start implementing it. It has been far too long and so I don’t want to spend too much time on this piece of legislation. From the National Party’s perspective, what we actually want to get done is get this bill passed. We want to give police the tools and we want to ensure that the police have the opportunity to do that.

Now I do know there’s a couple of amendments from the Green Party. I think one is in relation to a review and I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad idea. But there’s another Supplementary Order Paper there, which, effectively, says that the law expires—so some sort of sunset clause. But I imagine we’ll get to that when we get to the actual title and commencement and whether that’s—and, of course, we don’t support having this piece of legislation automatically expire after five years. The reality is, unfortunately, that drugs are part of New Zealand’s society and the reality is this type of legislation is going to be necessary for the foreseeable future.

So I think it’s incredibly naive of the Green Party to, effectively, say that in five years’ time, this legislation won’t be necessary because actually—maybe in their dystopian world they live in maybe they’ll be thinking that all drugs will be legal in five years’ time and that we’ll all be in our happy place and, actually, that driving down the road on a high is OK. Well, I’m sorry. That’s not the future I want for myself or my children. I actually want to know that when I’m driving down the road or my children are driving down the road that actually they’ll be safe from drug drivers and that there are penalties in place for people who do drive under the influence of drugs on our roads. I don’t think we should be coming back as a Parliament in five years’ time and, effectively, renegotiating whether that’s actually something which should be OK or not.

Actually, we need to have a regime which has a level of permanence, a level of consistency, and not one which is dreaming of some sort of world which actually is, unfortunately, not going to be a reality—and actually a world which I don’t actually want, which is a world where, effectively, we sort of tolerate anybody driving down the road with anything in their system. I actually don’t tolerate that. And so, actually, I want this legislation to be implemented and I want it to stay because, actually, I want our roads to become safer.

I think it’s important to note that the instances of drugged driving—and the Minister may correct me if I’m wrong but my understanding is that there are now more instances of drugged driving causing death than drink driving causing death on our roads. That is something which I think is an incredibly serious point and which New Zealanders should be incredibly concerned about, particularly as that trend has rapidly increased in recent years and is something which needs to be urgently arrested. I think it’s part of the reason why the road toll has increased in recent years, and it is something which needs to be looked at.

I see the Minister of Police, Hon Poto Williams, there on the other side and acknowledge her and the police in the work that they do, but there is a real issue around their implementation of the road safety work. I do note in last year’s annual report for police, they only implemented half of the breath tests that they were required to do—so they were required to do 3 million breath tests last year; only 1.5 million of those were actually completed. And so the reality is that the proof will be in the pudding and actually giving this legislation to the police and then making sure that there is the resource to actually deliver on it and that the Government actually delivers on it—hopefully, finally, next year, actually delivers on its three-year promise of 1,800 new police, which was meant to be implemented by 2020, but of course, has fallen well behind.

So we look forward to supporting this piece of legislation. We look forward to it coming into effect and we look forward to the impact it’s going to have on our roads.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Firstly, I’d like to thank the Transport and Infrastructure Committee for the work they have done, and the officials for bringing this bill back to the House in such a way that we can be debating it with very little argument and large agreement across the House. I thank the members for their contributions, and I thank the members across the House for their support.

I want to comment on a couple of issues that the previous speaker, Simeon Brown, raised. The purpose of this bill is to deal with the invidious dilemma we have before us, the rising numbers of people who are impacted by drugs who are driving on our roads. The member was correct to allude to the fact that increasingly drugs are having such an impact on our roads that they are causing more and more fatalities—perhaps not as many as alcohol, but I know that in the last five or six years, the numbers impacted by drugs who are killed on our roads has increased to the point where we can no longer sit idle. We must act and provide the support to our police to enforce this, to keep our roads safe.

I just want to signal that in terms of the Supplementary Order Papers in the name of the Hon Julie Anne Genter, the review period that she has suggested we agree with; we think that is a useful mechanism for us to check in to know that the legislation is working well and also to make whatever decisions we may make about needing to make amendments to that. In terms of the sunset clause, that is not something we think is needed, given that we have a review period that we are going to support. I thank the members across the Chamber for their support of that review period.

I just want to say that it is an important piece of legislation that we’re passing here today and it is about keeping us as safe as we can be on the road. So I’m not going to prolong my discussion in this debate, just to thank those who have worked so hard on this bill. Hopefully we will pass it very quickly.

The question is that the Hon Julie Anne Genter’s amendment to delete the amendment to clause 39 in Supplementary Order Paper 96 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 97 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 1 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 96 as amended be agreed to.

Amendments as amended agreed to.

Part 1 as amended agreed to.

Part 2 Related and consequential amendments