Land Transport (Road Safety) Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Associate Minister of Transport: I move, That the Land Transport (Road Safety) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 20 July 2023, and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

The reason for the truncated consideration by the select committee is because this legislation is aligning with the work of the police; they are amending their fleeing driver policy, it takes effect a little later this year.

No one in this House, whether the Minister or members opposite, get to instruct the Commissioner of Police on their utilisation of resources, or the policies they use to enforce the law. What we can do, however, is make sure that, with the power of Parliament, there are complementary laws that assist the police in achieving their objective of effective law enforcement.

When it comes to fleeing drivers, in the first reading of the bill, there’s been a good indication about where there are points that the House wishes to consider. Members of the National Party want it both to be harsher—except if you’re Chris Penk, who wants there to be some sort of proper respect for New Zealand Bill of Rights Act considerations. The Green Party is considerably opposed to it. The ACT Party even raised issues about the innocent vehicle owners, even if those innocent vehicle owners are obstructers of police inquiries and who are fleeing drivers.

There are some issues to consider and there’s an effective time for the select committee to do that, but it is important that this law gets in place so it fully and properly complements the work of the police when they implement their new policy on fleeing drivers. On that basis, I have made this motion to the House to truncate the select committee process.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

I’m not going to take a long call, but I do want to put out National’s reservations that once again we’re seeing truncated legislation. I think the Minister himself has articulated why we need more time. This is not so much a complex but a complicated piece of legislation. The Minister has noted a number of the reservations that are being put forward by members of the House, and I’m pleased he’s heard that. And even though I sit on the Justice Committee and, without sounding vainglorious, we’re a pretty smart bunch of cookies, it’s still not enough time for us to property consider the bill.

I think it’s also not enough time for the public to understand that this law is going through and to submit. And let’s be very, very clear—a good chunk of that time is the recess of Parliament, and I think it’s really important for people at home to understand that the recess doesn’t mean that the parliamentarians are having a break. We’re actually back in our electorates working and engaging with the community, and now we have to push that to the side in order to rush this piece of legislation through.

This legislation is impacting not only on operational police work. It does have justice issues: whose vehicle, whose ownership, whose consequence should be paid? These need to be properly considered, and, unfortunately, we have a bit of form coming from this Government of rushing things through and then getting it wrong. In the social development and welfare space, a number of times we’ve had to come back to amend amendment bills—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Bring it back.

SIMON O’CONNOR:—because we’ve made mistakes, or rather, this House, or Government.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): No. This is a very narrow debate. The member is to address only the question that has been put.

My concern remains that with this land transport bill, if we do not have sufficient time for the select committee, we are going to find errors, which means that we’re just going to cause more trouble. So I would ask the House to oppose this motion. I take on board what the Minister says, and I don’t think anyone disagrees that we want to see any law that’s going to increase the safety of the country move through and be on the books, but we should not do it at the cost of getting the bill right. So I just want to put that on the record and assure the House that if the Government uses its majority to push this through, those of us on the Opposition side, certainly in the National Party, will do our best to address the shortcomings.

Members, that is urgency concluded. Before I adjourn the House, I just want to pass on the House’s thanks to the Hansard team; the Chamber staff, who have looked after us so well; the Office of the Clerk; and the Office of the Speaker, all of whom have been working very hard behind the scenes to support the work of this House. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. next sitting day.

The House adjourned at 3.41 p.m. (Friday)