Land Transport (Drug Driving) Amendment Bill

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s always good to join the House, albeit virtually, from Auckland this afternoon. Greetings to all of my colleagues and people watching this very, very important bill, the Land Transport (Drug Driving) Amendment Bill. As a member of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, I’ve followed this closely and at times cautiously, because this particular bill provides the police with new powers to use oral fluid testing devices to test drivers anywhere, any time to see if they have consumed impairing drugs before driving. We know, obviously, it’s important to ensure that our New Zealand police officers are supported to do the job that they need to, but also what I’ll speak to towards the end of my speech is the importance of education as a part of this particular piece of work.

When we look at the particular problem that we’re trying to solve here, other than alcohol, cannabis is the most commonly detected psychoactive substance in blood samples from drivers that are killed in our road crashes—23 times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash, if you’re affected by alcohol, drugs, or prescription medicines when driving. And drugs and alcohol are a contributing factor to almost 50 percent of fatal crashes in Aotearoa New Zealand. Thirty percent of deaths are a result of drivers who are under the influence of drugs other than alcohol in this instance. While drug-drivers already face serious criminal penalties if they are caught, the current law makes it hard for police to carry out more tests that could deter drug-driving. Recent studies have shown that randomised roadside testing would in fact improve road safety.

As a member of the select committee, we heard a number of oral submissions, and what I was particularly interested in was an Auckland, or Tāmaki-makau-rau, lens. When I broke down some of those statistics, when we face this particular bill, we know that Auckland is facing particular challenges in this area. In fact, last year, 64 people died and 749 others were seriously injured due to road trauma, and after loss of control and speed, driving under the influence of drugs is the third highest contributor to vehicle crashes that result in death.

Now, these particular stats are very sobering and it’s important—and, as I understand, listening to the previous speeches, last week it was, there’s a general consensus that this bill is very, very important to address the particular problem that we need to, a fact that’s taken some time, but it’s under this particular Government that we’ve been able to move forward on this. While drug-drivers currently face serious criminal penalties if they’re caught, they are often not. So this bill enables oral fluid tests, which will make it easier for our New Zealand Police to screen more drivers, and this will create a deterrent for those who might choose to drive while under the influence of drugs.

When we canvassed with submitters and with officials the nature of testing, the oral fluid devices will initially be able to test for six particular drugs. Of course, we’re familiar with THC. We hear more and more about methamphetamine in use, particularly in Auckland and our surrounding suburbs. Benzodiazepines is also another one. MDMA—which is ecstasy—opiates, and cocaine. So what we need to do is to ensure that we are able to test adequately and ensure that the right tests and the right approach by New Zealand police is in place in this particular area.

I want to turn to one of the submissions that we heard which was from Community Action on Youth and Drugs (CAYAD), which you may be familiar with. One of their statements that stood out for me was around the importance of deterring dangerous drug-driving as a vital step in decreasing our road harm, as well as reducing drug-related harms in our community. But they also acknowledged the importance of ensuring that the right support is in place, that we have compulsory referrals for assessment, and that part of that referral process is into further education, and drug education in particular, or the need for rehabilitation where relevant. In my sense, this is an and/and discussion that, yes, we do need to put forward this particular bill to save lives, to keep people safe, but also, obviously, we need to ensure that we continue to educate those that may get in behind the wheel when they are under the influence of alcohol or, in this instance, of drugs. We know that this type of prevention works and we want to ensure that we put our best foot forward in that as well. So I can’t promote the educational lens enough; that’s my takeaway in particular, from hearing these oral submissions.

But, without further ado, it is important that this particular piece of legislation, the Land Transport (Drug Driving) Amendment Bill, moves forward, that it does progress under this Government, because we’re doing a lot of work to progress transport in New Zealand. Finally, can I acknowledge both Minister Wood and Minister Williams and the work that they’ve done to progress this particular bill, and also all members of our select committee for transport and infrastructure, well chaired by a good gentleman with a lot of experience in this area, Greg O’Connor. So, without further ado, I would like to commend this bill to the House. Tēnā koe.

Barbara Kuriger—five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I heard the last speaker, Shanan Halbert, mention that he would like to commend Minister Wood for progressing this bill. One of the most frustrating things that happen in Parliament is the length of time that some pieces of legislation take to get passed. And yes, while Minister Wood hasn’t been in the chair the whole length of time of this piece of legislation, it’s really quite disturbing to our team how long this has actually taken.

It’s a good bill. It establishes a new random roadside oral fluid testing regime, because, actually, back in 2014, 18 people were killed in crashes where the driver had consumed drugs other than alcohol before driving. By 2018, the number of people killed in crashes where the driver had consumed drugs other than alcohol before driving had risen to 95—a substantial rise.

💬 Simeon Brown: What did the Government do?

We are now in 2022, and instead of the Government progressing this bill—Mr Brown rightly pointing out, as the National Party we’re actually wanting this bill to progress—what the Government did instead—and reminder we’re now in 2022. What this Government did in 2020 was they decided that they were going to push through a referendum at the election. Let’s push through a referendum. Let’s talk about cannabis. Let’s have a conversation about drugs before we’ve actually solved the problem of drug-driving. If that’s driving in reverse, I think they should own up to it.

💬 Simeon Brown: What were they smoking?

Oh, look, I absolutely wonder, Mr Brown. To be honest, this is a Government who are not making much progress in a lot of things. They seem to rush through really, really bad legislation, and then they seem to take their time running legislation through the House where, actually, it’s got support. I think it’s largely got support. We’re certainly supporting it.

💬 Simeon Brown: Except for the Greens.

Yeah, well, we wonder about that. There might be another abstention before we get to the end of the afternoon, who knows. But certainly the National Party’s supporting this piece of legislation because it’s very important.

At this point in time, I would like to make mention of a family from south Taranaki who in 2018 lost a number of members and friends, and that is the Porteous family. Some of you will remember that there was an extremely bad accident and this was caused under these circumstances by a driver where that family and their friends were taken out, and it was a terrible tragedy. It was a real tragedy because there were actually children of the driver in that accident who were also killed. So it was a really, really sad time for people, not only in that family but right across with all their friends and family. So I think it’s really appalling that that was in 2018 and now it’s 2022, and going through everything we’ve been through and the Government’s finally decided to bring this out at this point in time and push it forward

We’re really pleased to support it, because road safety’s really important to us. While we’re on the subject of road safety, Minister Wood, while you’re here, we don’t see much progressing in the realms of road safety. So while we’ve got this drug-driving and we’ve still got the problem in some cases of alcohol, we now have our rural roads where it’s suggested that they’re going to be slowed down to 80 kilometres an hour, and I just believe it’s just a vague excuse for not fixing the roads, a terrible excuse for not fixing the roads. I don’t know if the Minister’s taken time to look at the productivity figure of the businesses and the trucks that use that road to get our goods and services across the country, to get our products to market—all the good people that are keeping this country going. Twenty kilometres an hour on that road is a disgraceful effort to keeping the productivity of this country up and running, and it’s something that the National Party is absolutely appalled about in terms of slowing the road speed down. It’s just the last thing we should be doing, and it’s just an excuse.

So really when it comes to transport, the Government’s done nothing, isn’t really contemplating on doing anything, not even cycle lanes over harbour bridges. It seems to have completely slowed down, but we do commend this bill to the House. This is one good thing in a wide portfolio. Thank you.

I call Arena Williams to make a remote contribution—five minutes.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker, and thank you for the opportunity to speak on this bill briefly. I thank the previous member, Barbara Kuriger, for her support for this bill, but wish to make the quick point that the National Party had nine years to introduce legislation which dealt with drug-driving offence.

But I am glad that in this House it is a Labour Government that has brought this legislation, because the National Party would have had the priorities all wrong. The National Party’s member’s bill on this dealt with only three drugs and those were MDMA, THC, and meth, and that is the wrong approach to an otherwise—what is under a Labour Government—evidence-based approach to the harm minimisation of drugs on our roads. This bill does take that harm minimisation approach, which is in line with the police approach to roadside testing of alcohol already. Alcohol is what is doing the damage on our roads. Predominantly our roadside testing of alcohol reflects that and this is an extension of that harm minimisation approach.

This bill, unlike National’s proposal, doesn’t simply list drugs that people think do harm; it takes into account the Independent Expert Panel on Drug Driving’s recommendations and lists a number of substances with a specific high risk blood concentration level. Things like lorazepam, which is a benzodiazepine, that treats anxiety; things like tramadol, codeine, and morphine, which are commonly used pain medications, which do have a known effect on drivers’ ability to respond to threats; and zopiclone, which treats difficulty in sleeping. These are all commonly used drugs. They do have an effect on drivers, and this approach in this bill shows that we are taking a harm minimisation approach to all drugs, which doesn’t just single out those drugs that people think do harm; it really takes into account the drugs that are doing harm on our roads.

This also shows that the Labour Government is committed to road safety with the recent launch of our approach to the Road to Zero campaign, which sees billions of dollars invested in road safety around the country and the majority of that’s been spent on the police’s approach to be able to enforce these rules. I have complete faith that this Government is the one to be addressing not only roadside testing of drugs but all road safety measures that we need to get right this term. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity, as the member of the Ōtaki electorate, to take a call today in the House, albeit virtually in this hybrid Parliament, of which this is my first time doing this. I was able to be on precinct last week, so this is the first time I’m doing a virtual call, so please bear with me, colleagues and Madam Speaker.

I am also privileged to be part of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, of which we heard submissions on this, the Land Transport (Drug Driving) Amendment Bill. I think we can safely say that the majority of those submitters all agreed that the safety of people on our New Zealand roads is critical. Also, I think we can all agree that the majority of the submitters all agreed that driving impaired, under the influence of drugs, is not what we want on our roads.

This bill gives our police, our awesome and hard-working police officers, access to a tool, the oral fluid testing tool, which means that that will quite quickly identify anyone who is impaired or under the influence of drugs while driving. With this tool, that means that our police officers are able to quickly administrate the test when they suspect someone may be impaired or under the influence, and quite quickly get the result back of what that looks like. Now, if that driver is negative, then quite quickly that driver also, provided that everything else is fine, can go on about their day quite quickly. It gets through the screening and the testing process really, really quickly for our police officers, who we all know have got many, many important works to do, including this, in making sure our roads are safe. However, if that driver is under the influence, then the police can continue to process that driver accordingly.

But ultimately, this new tool for our police officers makes sure that the police’s time is used efficiently, and also it makes sure that we are quite quickly taking anyone who is impaired and under the influence of drugs off our roads and making sure that we keep our roads as safe as we can. This oral test also picks up, like my colleague Arena Williams said, around six, actually, of the prevalent drugs here in Aotearoa, and so that in itself is a good thing. We don’t want, again, people who are impaired driving on our roads under those impairing drugs.

Again, as Arena also mentioned, this bill is a piece of the wider mahi that this Government is doing around the Road to Zero. Again, I think everyone, even those across the House, regardless of when you think we should have done this bill in comparison to the nine long years that the Opposition had to do this bill—I think we can all agree that at least something is happening now. This Government is making sure that they’re putting the safety of all New Zealanders and, actually, everyone who travels on our roads first. This Government is making sure that they’re giving our public servants, the police, the tools to properly do their job. This Government is making sure that they are protecting our people as we said we would, and for that I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. In true autocratic socialist form, the Opposition is trying to rewrite history and put a different version of what actually happened. Well, I was Associate Minister at the time, and we actually looked at doing this nine years ago and we couldn’t, because the technology wasn’t there. So that is the simple truth of it. Australia actually brought it in about a year before we looked at it, and they struggled with the technology and to actually make it appropriate. And the do-gooders in this House from the left of the Parliament basically wouldn’t have anything like that happen in New Zealand, because it had to be all perfect for all the druggies out there so they’d be fine.

So that’s, essentially, the history of what happened in this bill, and finally we’ve got to the stage it’s going through Parliament. As we’ve said, you know, Labour’s had a couple of hiccups on the way with a little bit of a reason to hold it off while they’re doing other things in the drug enforcement area, or un-enforcement—

💬 Barbara Kuriger: It wasn’t enforcement; it was un-enforcement.

—yeah, the un-enforcement area. But, essentially, this is a bill that all parties should support. Maybe the Greens will abstain like they did on taxation—no real point being in Parliament if you’re going to abstain on a tax bill.

But the reality is that this is a part of the evolution of road enforcement, and alcohol testing has been there for many years. Drug testing is much more recent, with technology being a bit more difficult, because some drugs stay in the system longer than the actual impact they will have on the driving ability. Also you have difficulty in actually testing regimes; without basically doing a blood test, it’s very difficult to show at an early stage.

So all those things complicate it, but this technology has got to the stage where the New Zealand Parliament can do it. All parties, I would imagine, will be supporting it. It needs to happen. It’s in the best interests of New Zealand road users, so we support the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m going to do the unthinkable and agree with David Bennett, because the technology that has evolved around saliva testing has really changed over time. What we now have is we have technology that means you don’t have to be so invasive with people and that’s reliable about something that’s actually really helpful, which is recent use of a drug. So the problem with some of the testing in this area, and particularly urine testing, is that you don’t actually know from the test whether the person is impaired, and you don’t actually know if they’ve recently used it.

We had quite a few submissions from people who were worried about their historic use of marijuana, and they’re worried about that because marijuana stays in the fat cells. When it does that, you can’t actually tell if the person’s smoked a joint quite a while ago or they’re actually impaired when they’re driving. Now, we have pretty good, robust saliva tests, and they’ll show you that there has been recent use of a suite of drugs. That isn’t made on a moral ground or a legal ground; it’s made on the basis of its impairment. So it’s like, basically, this is the rule, people: don’t take drugs and drive. They impair you. It puts drugs into the same situation that we have had alcohol for a while, where that message actually needs to get out to the community.

We did actually hear from some submitters who tried to persuade us it was fine that they were taking drugs and it was fine that they were driving, because that’s the sort of mixed message that is out there at the moment. This sends a really clear one: don’t do it. Recent use of drugs, anything that impairs you, is not a good idea on our roads, because we also heard submissions from really heartbroken people who had lost their friends and their relatives because of this particularly culturally inappropriate part of our world. We need to stop doing that and we need to change the culture, and it needs to be not OK to drive if you are on alcohol, and it needs to be not OK if you are drugged, regardless of whether that drug is legal, and it needs to be not OK to drive if you are fatigued, because this can hurt people too. We just need to take more care.

So what the panel has suggested is that this is a robust test, and that test is for a suite of drugs. What will happen is that there will be a random roadside test, and so you will be stopped randomly. Then you will be either taken on what’s called a CIT, which is a general impairment test, where you do a number of things to try that, or the traffic officer or the policeman will elect to put you into another stream to do a saliva test, and that will be done twice to make sure it is actually a good result, an accurate result. You will have an option for a blood test if you would prefer to do that. But if you do, you could go down a criminal type of level, because, actually, that will be proof of something that is itself a problem. So if you don’t and you get two positive tests, there will be an infringement notice.

Importantly, you’ll have to hand over your keys and you’ll be banned from driving for the next 12 hours, so you won’t be going home in that state. Then, at that time, you’ll walk home and think about what you’ve done, hopefully. If this happens twice, you’re—or three times—going to have an alcohol assessment and drug assessment. So you’re going to have some assistance, but you’ll also be given a notice with your infringement notice suggesting you look at whether this is an issue in your life. So that’s what this bill will do, and I’m hoping that what it does is it changes our culture. So I hope it sends a message to people that this is not appropriate behaviour and that we have a real problem in New Zealand with road safety, and a lot of people get hurt because we would prefer to be convenient rather than be conscientious about what we do on the roads.

So this to me seems a really good balance. In addition to it, there is a review. That was an accepted Supplementary Order Paper. That review will happen in a few years, and it will actually be really helpful for the rest of the world, because there’s very little evidence about what goes on in this space, so we’ll be contributing there. That review will be a timely reminder that we all just need to look at this area and see whether we’ve actually had some progress in it. I suspect we will have. So thank you. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to. Just for the House, the Green Party will voting remotely.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

A party vote was subsequently held to correct the vote on the bill with the result Ayes 108, Noes 12.