Land Transport (Drug Driving) Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Land Transport (Drug Driving) Amendment Bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: I move, That the Land Transport (Drug Driving) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

First of all, this is my first speech as the newly appointed—three days in—Minister of Transport, and I want to start by acknowledging the work of my predecessor, the Hon Simeon Brown, who’s—I was going to say moved on to better things, but I’m not sure that’s necessarily true. He’s moved on to a different portfolio, and I’ve picked up the mantle of the Government’s important work in transport and infrastructure.

I want to start by acknowledging him and the work that he and the team at the Ministry of Transport and Police did on this piece of work, and I also want to acknowledge the Transport and Infrastructure Committee—very ably chaired by Andy Foster—and sound contributions from across the House. I want to thank everyone who made a submission on this bill. In particular, I want to thank Dr Helen Poulsen from the Institute of Environmental Science and Research—ESR—for her invaluable expert advice on this very technical piece of legislation.

Alcohol and drugs, as I think most members will know, are the number one contributing factor in fatal road crashes in New Zealand. In 2022, they were contributors to 200 fatal crashes on our roads. Despite this, police have no way to undertake saliva testing for drugs at the roadside, and only 26 percent of drivers think they are likely to be caught while driving under the influence of drugs. Just reflect on that: 75 percent of people think that they are unlikely to be caught while driving under the influence of drugs.

Now, as members will know, this issue of roadside oral fluid drug testing has an interesting history. I think I’m right in saying this is Parliament’s third attempt at introducing roadside drug testing. The last legislation, introduced by the previous Government, did not work as there was no commercially available testing device that met the criteria, so we committed to solving this problem, and, indeed, that is what this bill does.

The amendments to the Land Transport Act are focused on creating a workable regime that reflects the capability of drug-testing devices available. It enables oral fluid testing at the roadside to better detect and deter people driving after consuming impairing drugs. From 2019 to 2023, crashes involving drug-drivers claimed the lives of 108 people each year on average. That is 30 percent of road deaths annually, and, as I said before, only 26 percent of people think they are likely to be caught.

The detection and deterrence of drug-driving, complementary to the successful alcohol breath testing regime—which I might note, in passing, was controversial when first introduced, and it is actually instructive to go and read the Hansard back from the 1990s when Parliament made the far-sighted decision to say, “Too many people drink and drive. You need a deterrence and a detection system out there to make sure that fewer people do it and that those who do get caught and then get punished.” There were all sorts of debates about rights and testing and unreasonable search and seizure. It actually is true to say that the land transport amendment Act 1991, from memory, got a section 7 report under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and Parliament went ahead and did it anyway because they thought it was the right thing to do.

It was a bit controversial at the time, but it is impossible to envisage a New Zealand today in which there is no roadside breath testing. I mean, just imagine that. It is impossible to imagine a situation where we didn’t have roadside breath testing. It is now a completely normal and accepted part of everyday New Zealand society, and, actually, this Government has put more money into increasing the numbers of breath tests, because there was a steep decline in previous years.

There were concerns at the Transport and Infrastructure Committee about the regime targeting recent drug use rather than impairment. Now, clearly, impairment varies from person to person, and the relationship between drug concentrations in oral fluid and impairment is complex. Devices test for drug concentrations above a threshold that captures recent drug use. The regime uses recent use as a proxy for impairment. This is similar, as I say, to the alcohol testing regime.

Another concern raised by submitters was about the accuracy. We know that the devices are not always 100 percent accurate. A small number of roadside screening tests with false results, both positive and negative, are unavoidable, given the capability of the devices. To mitigate this, two positive screening tests will be required at the roadside before a driver is stood down.

The bill also introduces a requirement for an oral fluid sample to be sent to an approved laboratory for testing, following a positive screening test result at the roadside. An infringement fee and demerit points will only be issued if the laboratory test detects the presence of a specified qualifying drug at a level that is indicative of recent use.

Now, the select committee has recommended some changes, which the Government will agree to, in relation to the approval criteria for roadside oral fluid screening devices. There was a risk, I’m advised, that commercially available screening devices would still not meet the approval criteria due to the ambiguity surrounding some of the criteria. The new criteria allows the Minister of Police to approve devices after considering the accuracy of the device and the extent to which the threshold used by the device will return a positive result that indicates recent use of a drug or family of drugs. The Minister of Police will need to consider these factors in the context of the overall purpose of the new regime to better detect and deter drivers after recently using drugs.

The bill as reported back requires the Minister of Police to consider device accuracy in light of the requirements for screening oral fluid as set out in the relevant provisions. The provisions require two positive screening tests at the roadside before a person is prohibited from driving for 12 hours. This is intended to mitigate the possibility of action being taken at the roadside because of false positive screening test results.

Now, I mentioned, before, the implications for rights and freedoms. The bill does have implications, and there have been concerns raised by the Attorney-General and submitters, so the committee considered whether the bill should include a maximum time limit for enforcement officers to administer the first screening test. The committee asked that this issue be given further thought. The Government has thought about these concerns, and we appreciate them. We are not proposing to amend the bill in this way, because of the range of factors that influence the length of time taken to complete a screening test—for example, the time for the device to return a result, the cooperation of the driver, the ability of the driver to produce enough oral fluid.

Here’s the rub: legislating a time frame potentially incentivises drivers to prolong the process in order to avoid undergoing a test. That would send the wrong message and incentive, clearly, and it would completely undermine the effectiveness of the regime. It’s worth again, also, bearing in mind it’s out of step with the alcohol breath testing regime—essentially, we are bringing the law around drugs, as much as we possibly can, into line with the law around alcohol.

There are further amendments which the Government supports. One was a provision for drivers to seek an independent laboratory test, as I’ve covered off, aligning with alcohol breath testing. The committee also recommended changes to simplify the statutory review process, requiring the review to be completed within five years of the bill’s commencement. The Government will support those changes. Another change was to remove restrictions that currently prevent an enforcement officer from switching to a compulsory impairment test once they have initiated an oral fluid screening test. This change ensures that officers are supported to use their judgment where they have good cause to suspect drug use.

I want to take this opportunity to reassure members that the regime is designed with safeguards to ensure fair administration. Devices will have built-in positive screening thresholds to avoid capturing drivers with low levels of drugs. The 12-hour stand-down period following two positive screening tests is intended to address the immediate road safety risk the driver poses. A medical defence will still be available to ensure that the oral fluid testing regime does not penalise drivers who are taking prescription medication at the direction of their medical health professional.

The bill is a key action in the Government’s plan to improve road safety, actively addressing the contributing factor to over 100 road deaths annually. As I said before, I do believe that, as other countries have done and other jurisdictions have done, we will eventually look back in a few years’ time and say, “Goodness me. How extraordinary was it that you could get high and drive without anyone thinking that they would possibly catch you and, unsurprisingly, a bunch of people do that, and how extraordinary is it that that is the case?” Eventually, we will sit back, as we do now about alcohol breath testing, which was similarly controversial at the time, and say, “Goodness me! How crazy was it that in the 1980s you could drink and drive and no one went out and checked whether or not you were drinking and driving?” We will eventually do exactly the same thing for drugs, and that is why I commend the bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Kia orana, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of the Labour Party. We supported this bill at first reading, we supported it through select committee, and we’ll continue to support it at second reading, with a couple of caveats there. Can I first acknowledge the Minister of Transport, Chris Bishop, on his new portfolio. Members on this side of the House agree that road safety as a priority is important and that anything that will prevent fatalities and injuries on our roading network is a good thing to do. That’s why Labour did introduce a regime when it was in Government.

I want to acknowledge the members of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, a very collegial committee. Can I acknowledge the chair, Andy Foster, for chairing us through this process. I think the select committee report actually is a very fair reflection of the conversations and the issues that the committee tussled with and, effectively, where we landed as a committee, as well. I want to acknowledge the advisers that provided advice to the committee. I also, along with the Minister, want to acknowledge Dr Helen Poulsen, who was able to provide, from the Institute of Environmental Science and Research Ltd (ESR), a scientific basis and background to testing, and, actually—certainly for me—provided a level of comfort around the testing that does take place out at ESR, but it’s still important to be able to understand what can be a complex issue moving forward.

One of the things that the Minister did touch on, and it’s something that members on this side of the House don’t have comfort around, was the concerns that the Attorney-General did raise. There were a couple of concerns that she raised in her report. One was around the possibility of detaining someone for a period of time that was rather excessive on an arbitrary sort of notion; the other was around the freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. What the committee did is that it worked extremely hard to then turn its mind to try and address some of the issues that had been raised.

I have to say that I’m very disappointed to hear from the Minister that one of the issues that was in the select committee—a possible maximum time by which a driver would be detained on the roadside—which the committee was really encouraging the Government to turn its mind to, is something that the Government is not prepared to pursue. I say that because the select committee, I thought, worked in an extremely collegial way to get to a point where it signalled to the Government that this is something that members on that committee, including National members on that committee, were very comfortable to have.

Now, we weren’t able to land on a particular time period, because of two reasons: one, the advisers were not in a position to be able to provide a specific time frame to us, and, secondly, the amount of time that the committee had—because this was on a truncated sort of time frame in front of the committee—meant that we weren’t able to delve into this issue perhaps as deeply as we would have liked to. So those were the constraints that led to the committee being very clear in its select committee report back to this House that there really is an expectation that the Government, in seeking to address the concerns that the Attorney-General has made around this bill, will turn its mind to implementing a maximum time frame.

We heard from the advisers that one of the reasons for not having a maximum time frame was because an alcohol breath-screening test doesn’t have that. When we turn our mind to other jurisdictions, like Australia, where, in some situations, a first screening test could be up to 10 minutes, in other circumstances, a second oral fluid test could be up to 40 minutes, the view from members on this side of the House—and I thought of the committee at the time as well—was that there needed to be a fair understanding of what is a fair period of time that anyone that is driving here in New Zealand can expect to actually be stopped on the side of the road for the first oral fluid test; the second one is redundant, because if you get to the second one it means that your first test has, effectively, returned a positive. The limitations on freedom, in my view and of members of this side of the House, are not as great if you’ve already sort of gone across that first hurdle. I think that it’s unfortunate to hear from the new Minister that the Government are not going to take up that suggestion by the select committee, because I thought, actually, it was something that members from across the House were keen to see actually implemented as part of that.

There is one time limitation in existing statute, and that relates to identity, where a police officer can, effectively, hold someone at the roadside for up to 15 minutes before either having to release them or let them go or, basically, charge them or arrest them, and that’s for failing to being able to establish the identity of a driver. Now, even the Attorney-General, the Hon Judith Collins, in her report on this bill, indicated that anything above 15 minutes, basically, called into question this issue of what is an unreasonable period of time to detain someone. I do hope that the Government do see a way through this and that when we come to the committee of the whole House stage, they may change their mind to reflect the views that the select committee listened to and what it was that we were able to hear as well, because that certainly was an expectation from members to respond to the concerns that were raised by the Attorney-General.

One of the other things that came up through the select committee was—and I do hope that this is not the case—procurement wishing to drive what the provisions are in the legislation. I would hope that that is not what this new-found position of the Government is on that particular matter. It’s really important that when this piece of legislation goes through the process, we consider what needs to be in it, what needs to be out of it; that is what drives procurement. I don’t think it’s appropriate to have a situation where the decisions as to what is going to be in the bill or in the legislation, or what is not, is going to be driven by an ability to, basically, procure devices or otherwise, and that was made very clear through the select committee process.

At this stage, we, I guess, tentatively look to support it. But we will reserve, through the committee of the whole House stage, given the surprise position that the Government have just sprung on the House in terms of not wishing to support the proposals that were outlined—I do hope that they reflect on that and, perhaps, we could have a different outcome to make it more workable, more fair, and get some consensus across the House on what is a pretty important issue.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker and tēnā koutou e te Whare. I’ll start by congratulating the new Minister on his role as Minister of Transport—very exciting.

Secondly, I want to acknowledge the hard, hard work of the excellent Transport and Infrastructure Committee on this bill. I do find that it is an incredibly constructive and collegial committee, and I wouldn’t have said that about all the committees I’ve sat on in my time in this House—now at 13 years.

I do have some history with this bill, having been Associate Minister of Transport responsible for road safety at the time that we first started looking into the possibility of doing this. Last term, we none the less opposed that bill finally after submissions at select committee, and this bill amends that legislation.

Now, one of the goals, I think, in addressing this—like, there’s no question that cars are very dangerous. They’re extremely dangerous machines. In fact, it’s really interesting, I was looking at this infographic, which is quite astounding to me: “The World’s Deadliest Animals”. People killed per year by sharks, four people; by a wolf, 10 people; 1,000 people killed by crocodiles; 475,000 killed by humans intentionally; 725,000 killed by mosquitoes. We compare that to sharks, which I know a lot of people are afraid of. Mosquitoes would be the world’s deadliest animal, except that nearly twice as many people are killed by car drivers or in car crashes. Often times, I think it’s normal that humans—we didn’t evolve with cars so we’re much more worried about sharks and wolves and possibly being murdered, but people are far more likely to die in a car crash, unfortunately.

Road safety was a huge priority for me, always has been, and was when I was the Minister and developed the evidence-based road safety strategy and action plan, which was trying to address the biggest factors. The reality is that most car crashes are not done on purpose; most people are not killed on purpose in car crashes—the vast majority. However, people do make mistakes and that’s one of the reasons the alcohol testing regime is so important.

People are far more likely to make mistakes when they’re under the influence of alcohol—there is no question—and they’re more likely to make mistakes if they’re impaired because of some sort of substance, be that a drug that is regulated under the Misuse of Drugs Act and is technically illegal, or whether it is a medicine that’s been prescribed by a health practitioner. There are a whole range of substances that can impair people’s ability while they’re driving. It’s an incredibly important responsibility that if people are using a motor vehicle, they’re in the best possible state.

Being incredibly fatigued will impair drivers. Indeed, a number of studies have shown that doctors after work, or even medical students, people who’ve been working 24- or 36-hour shifts with no sleep, were more likely to be in a seriously damaging car crash or a fatal car crash than people who were severely impaired by alcohol. This legislation doesn’t do anything about the fact that some people who drive when they’re fatigued will be incredibly impaired and high risk.

This legislation by itself cannot solve most car crashes, and will not, unfortunately. The numbers that are being used, the statistics that have been cited by the Government to say that drugs and alcohol are the single largest contributing factor—well, that’s only because they’ve combined drugs and alcohol. If we split out drugs and alcohol, speed trumps both of them. Driving at a speed that is inappropriate for the conditions is more likely to influence or is responsible for more fatal crashes in New Zealand than drugs separately or alcohol separately.

Unfortunately, the biggest problem, I think, with the legislation and with this approach is that, unlike with alcohol, for most of these substances, the presence of the substance in the blood or in saliva cannot be sufficiently correlated to impairment. We do need a lot more research and work done on that, because it is important that there is some deterrent factor that people don’t believe they can use an impairing substance and then drive. It is really, really important that we do something about that.

However, at the select committee, we heard from a number of submitters. The majority of submissions were opposed to the bill as it was introduced, and that was primarily due to this problem of the difficulty of reliably establishing impairment from either oral fluid or blood tests. I’ll quote the Law Society, which recommended that the bill not proceed, and quoted the Independent Expert Panel on Drug Driving in its submission: “The use of oral fluid as a determining feature for immediate sanction raises … significant issues. The Independent Expert Panel on Drug Driving … has documented a number of the issues including the unreliability of drug concentration found in oral mucosa as related to the blood concentration, the pharmacodynamics which significantly alter the amount of drug concentration in oral mucosa, and the link between impairment and blood drug concentration being [much] more widely known and studied than the oral drug concentration.” Then we heard the same from the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.

I know it’s easy to come in here and say this, but it’s not plausible to say, “People, the reason for this legislation is because we’re really concerned about road safety.”, and then completely ignore all the experts on every other aspect of road safety. The chief trauma surgeon in the New Zealand Medical Journal wrote in extremely concerned, and a whole range of experts have criticised the last Minister’s policy on speed management as being completely not evidence based and going to result in more people dying and being seriously injured.

I would accept the argument that people are really concerned about road safety if they were taking an evidence-based approach. I can understand why many of the members of this House will support this legislation, because they do believe that doing something is better than doing nothing. However, the position of the Green Party is: do least harm first. Based on the submissions, based on the expert evidence, based on the fact that we simply cannot establish impairment from the presence of the vast majority of these substances, we cannot support this legislation as it is proposed at second reading, and so we will not.

I mean, the most important thing is recognising that, yes, there is a problem. The question is: is the proposed solution actually going to address that problem? At the very least, I do hope that the Government will carry on with monitoring and evaluation. While it is true that there are other jurisdictions that use oral drug testing to screen for illicit drug use and sometimes for pharmaceutical impairing drugs, there is no comprehensive evidence that suggests that that has meaningfully reduced impaired driving in those countries or that there’s been a significant reduction in the number of people being harmed on the roads as a result of those regimes. If there were such evidence, I think it would be a lot easier for the Green Party to support this bill.

The most serious potential problem, I think, was raised in the New Zealand Drug Foundation submission on the bill, which I highly recommend people look at. They propose an enhanced model of impairment testing that would actually pick up impairment and not just presence. There has been a recent study in Australia which demonstrated that when they tested for impairment of people using medicinal cannabis, those people were not impaired and yet they still had blood concentration levels that would have received an infringement or possibly even a criminal penalty for THC.

The big issue here is that THC is not like alcohol. Another big issue is that there’s a whole lot of different substances that are added together to talk about the drugs that are proven to influence fatal crashes in New Zealand. And not all of those drugs—in fact, the vast majority of them won’t be screened for. Some of them can’t be screened for with these oral fluid testing devices, so there’ll really only be one or two, maybe three, substances tested for, and one that’s definitely likely to be on that list is THC. People are using medicinal cannabis and without having any ability to tell whether those people are actually impaired or not—because blood level and saliva level doesn’t necessarily correlate to impairment in the same way that alcohol does. That’s why the Green Party will not be supporting this bill. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Firstly, I’d like to thank the new Minister of Transport for his introduction to this bill; it was a little surprising, some of the stuff we heard. I’ll also echo the previous committee members who have spoken—to thank Dr Helen Poulsen at the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR) for the sound advice she’s given us and for the tour of the facility during the select committee process, in a select committee which I also believe is an extremely collegial and helpful place to be discussing these issues, ably chaired by Andy Foster. The entire committee works in quite a good way.

The Transport and Infrastructure Committee went out to ESR, and I think that trip settled a lot of issues people had about privacy. One of the issues that I was concerned about initially was the use of samples for other things beyond driving, like some kind of Misuse of Drugs Act offence, but we’ve been assured that is not the case with this bill and that won’t be a part of it. The thresholds were designed, we heard in committee, to be a proxy for impairment. As the previous member has just alluded to, it’s not an easy thing to judge—impairment as a proxy with saliva levels—because, as the research is being conducted now to come up with these levels, there needed to be a bit more leeway given to getting devices that can actually measure these things.

I do have to say I was rather disappointed in the committee to have the advice from the officials that “We can’t give you decent options around the time that it will take to do these tests, because we don’t have procurement, and procurement’s going to have to follow the law.” I was deeply uncomfortable with that; I think that we should be expecting better in committee. That said, you know, I should say that ACT will be supporting this second reading, in case there is any doubt. But there are some issues in there that we need to be clear about.

I do feel that given the advice we received in committee, we can be confident that there is a good correlation, as a proxy, between saliva and blood levels and impairment—although not perfect—and that is being developed. I would like to see that progress a bit further as the Minister in charge approves these devices.

We also heard in committee about the operationalisation of the drug-testing regime and the word “random” was used; random being used to say, you know—when you hear the word “random”, you think it would just be picking up any old driver who’s cruising down a State highway in New Zealand. Actually, the Police said that they’re going to be operating that testing in not exactly a random way; it will be systematic and about proportionate risk to areas, times of day, and events that are occurring in that area. I think it’s important that people, when they hear that this will be applied in a random way, understand that it’s not random in the dictionary definition sense. It is actually going to have a more strategic approach to the way that it’s dealt to.

The Attorney-General raised issues with a section 7 report, as she is required in some ways to do when these sorts of issues arise, and there were some issues that ACT is somewhat uncomfortable with and do want to see fleshed out a bit with the Minister, at committee of the whole House. Those include the right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure, and the right not to be arbitrarily detained.

The first one about the unreasonable search and seizure is about, you know, if you’re going for someone based on a random stop, random screening test, that should have quite a high bar before you go and look at taking a sample of someone’s blood or saliva in this case. I think that this is an issue—this being drug-driving and the danger that imposes on New Zealanders and their families—that, in my judgment, warrants a regime for drug-driving testing. It’s pretty hard to deny that someone who is on drugs can, at certain levels, be a big danger to themselves when operating any type of machinery, and a vehicle travelling down the road and at anywhere between 10 and 100 kilometres per hour can always be dangerous.

I think it’s important that we weigh up the freedom of New Zealanders to not have arbitrary samples taken and also the freedom of New Zealanders to expect to be able to go about their lawful business without the danger that is imposed on them by people who are operating in a completely dangerous way on the road. I think there is a test there that is passed, although I thank the Attorney-General’s section 7 report on that matter.

The other matter that the Attorney-General raised was about the time—the arbitrary detention: how long can someone be stopped on the side of the road, required to give a sample? Now, as I alluded to earlier in my speech here, we didn’t get a lot of advice about time from officials, and I think that the Transport and Infrastructure Committee should have been able to expect a bit more in that way. But we, as a committee, decided that, on balance, we need to be moving in a direction that is going to provide New Zealanders with freedoms to move and the right to be not arbitrarily detained. We came to a balance, and the committee’s commentary reflects that.

It also reflects that there is a time that someone can be expected to be held on the road in New Zealand law without any reason, and it was alluded to earlier by Tangi Utikere. It’s section 114 of the Land Transport Act, which sets out a 15-minute limit for an enforcement officer to hold someone on the side of the road for the purposes of gathering information about who that person is, before they have to either release them or move on to another piece of legislation. We’ve put that in the commentary for all to see, and I think we could expect to see something being done when this bill comes up to review, because it will be reviewed. A statutory review of the bill is a good idea. I think a new scheme like this needs to be well checked. The Transport and Infrastructure Committee looked at when that should happen, and we’ve given some advice about bringing some of that time forward to make sure it can be completed in time to check that this regime is actually working.

The previous speaker from the Green Party, the Hon Julie Anne Genter, mentioned that there’s not a lot of science about these thresholds. Well, there are Australian - New Zealand standards that are operating in this area, so there is science developing. There are agreements that are happening between New Zealand scientists and Australian scientists from many states in Australia coming together and working out how these levels can be tested, correlated with impairment. There is actually a standard there, and I think that giving a level of accuracy that New Zealanders can feel confident is not taking away the rights of their fellow New Zealanders when they are going about their lawful business, but also is giving the people the right to feel safer on the road, because there’s too many stories of people in New Zealand dying on our roads needlessly, and the pain that it causes on all sides is quite traumatic. I think it’s something that has to be weighed up when it comes to this.

There’s one more piece in here which I’d like to touch on, which is: accompanying an officer to a place to be tested. The committee had a good discussion about this. The wording that we’ve come to in our commentary reflects the conversation, and that is that we do not expect that this will be used as a way to get somebody who has been stopped for the purpose of a random roadside oral fluid screening test to be removed from that location to a distant location. It’s fair enough if the police stop someone and say, “Look, this is not a safe place to perform this test; you’re accompanying me over to the berm here.”, or off the road into somewhere that’s a bit safer.

That is a fair enough thing, but the wording I felt was—and I’m no lawyer, and this House is full of very capable lawyers—a bit too loose. As in, you could say, as an officer, “I suspect you of drug-driving, and I’d like you to accompany me to the station where we have a machine which has been procured, which is not transportable.” I just don’t think that’s something New Zealanders would expect, and we were given in committee that that’s not what would happen. It would be used for the safety of the person being checked and the officer involved, not for a process of removing that individual off to a distant location. I just wanted to make sure that was on the record.

All of this said, I think the time has come for this. There does need to be a way for New Zealanders to be confident that 74 percent of New Zealanders don’t feel they can get away with drug-driving on New Zealand roads. That is a thing that a State that is looking after its citizens should be concerned about. I think this bill is weighing these up. There’s more to be done, but I look forward to having the conversation at committee of the whole House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, thank you. It’s a pleasure to rise to support and to speak to this bill, which is an important step forward for road safety for all New Zealanders. It’s also nice to be able to stand and also acknowledge the speeches that have gone before from my Transport and Infrastructure Committee colleagues, and thank you for your collegial—both speeches but also the collegial work that we’ve done, not only on this bill but on other pieces of legislation and other pieces of work.

I wanted to start off with a few thanks, and first of all, I just wanted to thank our wonderful officials from the Office of the Clerk—Jonathan Harris, Femke Jager, Louis Munt, and Chris Cunningham—who gave us fantastic support all the way through. I wanted to also thank the Ministry of Transport officials and the Police, who helped us immensely with a lot of very, very good advice; also, as you’ve heard, Dr Helen Poulsen, who we called in for the ESR—the Institute of Environmental Science and Research—to provide that expert advice which we absolutely needed to support our work.

I want to also thank the submitters. Some argued for the bill, some argued against it, and some raised concerns, and we tried to work our way carefully through that. I particularly also, at this point in time, want to thank two of our committee members: Tom Rutherford and Grant McCallum, who, as a result of a reshuffle, we’re going to lose from the committee. I want to thank you for your work both on this but also right the way through the last—what?—year and a bit. Thank you very much.

In particular, I wanted to talk across the House there to Labour, to Arena Williams and Tangi Utikere, and particularly thank you for the collegial way that you worked through those issues around the length of time of detention, because they were issues which several of us—Cam Luxton as well; myself—were concerned about as issues which we needed to work through. I thought we landed in a good place. It’s going to be interesting to see how the Minister continues to work through that, because we’ll continue to advocate in the direction we think it should go.

I was disappointed in the Green Party’s alternative, or minority, view. We pressed the Green Party several times during the select committee to say, “Well, you say you’re going to vote against this, you say you’re going to oppose this. Can you tell us why?” We only actually got the why when the minority view came out, and I think that that’s not good enough. I think that needs to be done earlier; I think that is the sensible way to go and it’s the collegial and appropriate way to go, because we might have been able to work through some of those issues as well.

Drug-driving is a significant safety problem on New Zealand roads. Just to give you some numbers, in calendar year 2023, there were 64 fatalities where drugs were detected in the driver—that’s drugs alone. There were another 32 where drugs and alcohol were detected. Just for context, there were 59 where alcohol alone was detected. So between those, 155 of the 341 total road deaths in 2023 were where drugs and/or alcohol were involved. It is a significant issue. It doesn’t mean that they caused the crash, but it does mean that they were part of the crash—and most crashes have multiple causes.

This bill is all about deterrence because, at the moment, there is no deterrence. I’ve had a long history in road safety. This has been one of those things which has been a bit of a Holy Grail: how can we do something to try and disincentivise people from consuming drugs and then driving? The Labour Government had a go at this in 2022, with the Land Transport (Drug Driving) Amendment Act, which gave police the power to stop people and to administer oral fluid tests. The problem there was it didn’t work because the bar was set so high, because you had to have something that was reasonably accurate because the roadside test was the thing that condemned you or didn’t condemn you.

The difference with this piece of legislation is that the roadside test is only a screening, whereas the actual determination of whether you actually get fined, whether you have demerit points, is done by a laboratory test. Despite the comments which were made by Julie Anne Genter, ESR said, quite clearly, “We cannot stand behind the accuracy of the screening test”—the oral fluid test—“at roadside. You might get up to 5 percent, plus or minus, of false positives or false negatives, but we can stand behind the laboratory test, just as we can stand behind the laboratory test for blood with alcohol testing.”, and that is the significant thing. That is why it was so important to get that advice. There is an issue with the—[Lights flicker in gallery]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: With the lights.

ANDY FOSTER: There is an issue with the lights. There is an issue with the roadside screening, which we did consider—

Hon Peeni Henare: Austerity!

ANDY FOSTER: —it’s the energy crisis!—and that is that if you fail two tests at the roadside, then you can be banned from driving for 12 hours; it’s no fine, etc. It is a significant inconvenience, and we did weigh that up, but the strong advice was that there is a safety issue there, and the safety issue outweighs the inconvenience issue. The likelihood of getting two false positives, effectively, is pretty small, so we thought that that was a reasonable position.

We also had a quite a discussion about prescriptions and should that be a defence. In a way, it is a defence, but it doesn’t prevent you being barred for those 12 hours, because, of course, if you use it in line with medical prescriptions, it’s not an illegal thing. That seems to be quite reasonable. But, of course, if you have failed those two tests, then there is the ability for the police officers to ban you from driving for 12 hours, for safety reasons.

I want to talk just briefly about the powers given to the Minister. Like Labour’s 2022 legislation, this bill gives the Minister of Police the power—in this case, in consultation with the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology—to approve devices. You heard the new Minister of Transport outlining some of the changes that the committee recommended. The Minister will approve the device, and the bill includes new criteria, but it still leaves discretion to the Minister. I would suggest that that discretion is exercised with care. The discretion is to approve the drug or drugs or drug families that the device can screen for, to approve the concentration levels.

Now, we’ve already heard—from, I think, again, it was Julie Anne Genter—about concentration levels. Those are set largely by standards. Those standards are argued through by both our experts in New Zealand, and the Australian experts, so there’s a lot of science, a lot of collaboration which goes behind setting those standards. They are a proxy, so the presence of the drug is a proxy for recent use, which is regarded as a proxy for impairment. Is it perfect? No, it’s not perfect—but getting it perfect, we will never do anything, and that’s probably the reality of it.

There are quite a lot of good safeguards there. The Minister must also consider the accuracy of the device and the ability to calibrate that device appropriately. The drugs that can be tested—there’s only a limited range of drugs that can be tested. They must be from the schedule of 25 listed drugs. They must have a standard, which I’ve just talked about, or an equivalent to that standard. Some of the rarely used drugs—and it is, by and large, the rarely used drugs—haven’t got a standard yet, so they’re unlikely to be tested. But, because they’re only a tiny fraction of the problem, that is not a big deal.

It’s not a perfect regime. It’s just like the blood-alcohol regime is not perfect. Different people, different body sizes, different metabolisms, they all respond differently. I did an exercise when I was the president of the New Zealand Traffic Institute some years ago that the police organised, and they had all sorts of different road safety practitioners and other people. They tested us, basically. They plied us with alcohol and food, and they tested us throughout the evening—I’m sure we didn’t drive home. They tested us throughout an evening, but it was really interesting to see how differently different people responded and what the effect, for example, of food, rest, whatever it might have been, was on that. Drugs will be just the same: the effect on people’s bodies will be different for different people.

The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (BORA) issues: the BORA is really, really important. My view is that we have far too few checks and balances on the power of Government anyway. The concerns which were raised by the legislative committee and the Attorney-General, we’ve already heard about those. The first thing, though, to say is those concerns were only about the first test. Once you’ve failed the first test, then those concerns go away, because there is then good cause to say that there is a potential issue there.

The Attorney-General raised issues about the inconsistency with search and seizure and the inconsistency with detention. It’s very, very clear that the issue of randomness is a problem to the Attorney-General. If I might quote—might give two quotes there—what she said is, “the more invasive the procedure the greater the expectation of privacy.” This is a more invasive procedure than blood testing, because you’re giving saliva and you’re also being detained for longer because it’s just a longer process. “[The] intrusion on an individual’s privacy that arises from the taking of a bodily sample for the first”—and I stress, the first—“oral fluid screening test appears disproportionate where there is no basis”—and this is the important bit—“to suspect the individual driving is under the influence of an impairing drug.”

This whole thing of randomness is a really, really important thing. The reality is—and I think Cam Luxton pointed it out very well—the police are not likely to do this randomly. They’re not going to drive along and go say, “Well, that white car, we’re going to pull that white car over for no reason whatsoever.” They’re going to take account of the location, the situation, if there is an event going on, whatever it might be. They might be in a situation where they’ve already tested the person for alcohol and they say, “Well, maybe we might want to test them also for drugs, because we are seeing an issue there.” There is the opportunity to do that.

I’m going to run out of time here, but I do want to say thank you again to all the people who’ve contributed to this. I commend this bill to the House.

The next call is a split call.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Tēnā tātou e te Whare. I’m not sure what to make of the fact that my very first speech this year is on the matter of drug-driving, but here we are.

In fact, can I just say we discussed this just this morning at our caucus—the importance or the priority we give to kaupapa that come to this House, namely in the form of bills, and therefore which of these bills impact on whānau and mokopuna and tūpuna, and how we will address them and prioritise them. You heard this morning that Dame Tariana Turia spoke on all the kaupapa she could, wherever and whenever she could, whether that be in this House or in the corridors or in select committees. So here it is. Firstly, I mihi to the new Minister, Chris—he’s not here. I didn’t mean that—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you.

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI: —other than to say that the fact I’m leaving the committee has got nothing to do with the fact there is a new Minister! Anyway, Andy, that’s out there now. But also to acknowledge Andy and my colleagues—I think that’s the right description—to say that it has been, apart from my first year in the House, my first year in this particular committee, and the determination and all the work that was provided, not only on this take [issue] but on all the issues that came to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee—so, Andy, ka nui te mihi ki a koe. Not an easy thing to corral such an exciting group of people.

Here it is from us: of course drunk- or drug-drivers are dangerous and need to be taken off the road. Of course we want whānau to feel safe and secure on the road when they’re driving, when they’re pedestrians or passengers. I want that and so does Te Pāti Māori. I don’t quite have the same confidence, Andy, you were just expressing around police just doing a random thing. I’m not being mean about police, certainly not after this morning’s first speeches, and certainly some of my own and Peeni’s relations are part of that police force, but to say this: there certainly isn’t the same trust that Māori communities have in that regard.

I come to the negative implications of this bill and where that harm often falls. Last year, you would have heard the exciting speech provided by Tākuta Ferris, not the one that you’re thinking about right now, but anyway. He stood and spoke to the implications that this bill will have on rangatahi Māori and particularly its impact on our young Māori men. He stated that the Human Rights Commission in 2019 identified that, when it comes to low-level convictions, Māori are overrepresented; when it comes to criminal convictions for possession of cannabis, Māori are overrepresented; and, when it comes to our prison populations, Māori, again, are overrepresented. In the context of drug-driving offences, the impact that this bill will have on our communities will be devastating.

Additionally, this bill is hypocritical in the fact that drug abuse and addictions are treated as a health issue in this country, yet here we have a bill that criminalises these very things. To the House, I ask, “Which is it: a health issue that deserves care, or a crime that deserves punishment?” Te Pāti Māori knows exactly who suffers and who benefits, depending on the answer a Minister or an MP may choose to give. Everyone in this room knows that driving infringements are a gateway to the criminal justice system for our young Māori men and that this bill will only accelerate the rate at which our tāne Māori are incarcerated. We know that, despite being 20 percent of the population, Māori are now among the most incarcerated people on the planet. The debate is always and will always be about the impact that the actions of Government have upon Māori people.

We in Te Pāti Māori, despite my working relationships with the select committee, which I hope I continue to have, reject this bill. It will only contribute to the already existing pipeline into prison for our rangatahi Māori and will only seek to further marginalise our people and exacerbate discrimination and an inherently racist system. Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Tēnā tātou e te Whare.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, I think it’s been really clear that everybody in this House thinks road safety is an issue that needs addressing. I think the problem lies in how we choose to do so, and the Green Party has been really clear that we need to take an evidence-based approach that centres the research and lived experiences of people. If we were to go using that, we would know that the answer often will lie in things like reducing speed limits, so making a road safer to use, and it includes things like greater awareness from the public about impaired driving and the impacts that it has on people.

I think, to me, there’s an issue that this bill is trying to address, which is the impairment that often comes because of the use of drugs—alcohol notwithstanding, as we do have a regime already for that. The challenge, I think—and Julie Anne Genter has already expressed, on our behalf, some of those challenges—lies in that this bill feels more like an experiment rather than something genuinely grounded on the best-available evidence on, for example, whether there is a strict correlation between THC—is one substance that’s been used as an example—in someone’s blood or saliva, and then levels of impairment. That correlation does exist in other substances such as alcohol, which is why the regime that we have had has proven more effective in terms of addressing issues that come from impairment due to substance use.

I don’t believe—and certainly nor did the submitters, who are experts on these issues—that the kits that we have available to do testing (a) are accurate enough, at least the first one that is used before going to the laboratory, nor (b) that we’ve developed the technology that will ensure that there is a very direct correlation with the results that are being given by these tests and then levels of impairment. I have heard members from the other side talk about things like the fact that they are developing technologies that they will hope will improve this level of accuracy and reporting.

I think if that is the case, if this is an area that is still being developed, I don’t see the need to continue moving forward with this bill without actually getting to a place where the tools that we have at our disposal to curtail impaired driving are there to actually guarantee the safety of our communities. It’s concerning to have a bill that may make people feel safer without actually doing so, and for the people who have been injured or have lost loved ones because of road accidents—and I’ve certainly been in a handful of car crashes myself; as a passenger, to clarify. I think of the fact that this bill actually does not do many people who have been affected by issues of road safety justice.

The previous speaker, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, also mentioned issues around interactions with the police. We can’t deny—because we have had multiple reports around how some people have described the systemic targeting of police to specific communities, mainly Pasifika, Māori, black people—that the way that this bill is assigned will inevitably entrench that systemic discrimination that exists. This, in some ways, actually is counter-productive to a public health approach to substance use. Actually, if what we want to create are communities that are aware of the dangers of driving while impaired and then we create fear amongst our communities on how they will be targeted, we will actually end up having the worst of both worlds: a regime that does not follow best-available evidence, nor communities that feel empowered to have genuine conversations with their peers around the dangers of driving while impaired.

Again, the Greens won’t be supporting the bill as it is. We do look forward to new technology, to evidence that allows us to have a regime that keeps our communities safe, because that is what our communities are calling for and what they deserve. With that, I will end my contribution and I look forward to finally having a debate on both road safety and drug use that is centred on evidence.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’d just like to, before I enter into this very, very important debate, quickly acknowledge the people of Mangawhai and what’s been going on there. I’ve spent the last two days there, and it’s been pretty tough. I acknowledge people that have had their homes devastated; I’m thinking of them, I’m sure that the House is too, and I wish them all the best.

Right, so I’d like to begin by thanking the chair of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee and the other members of the committee. It has been a very collegial committee. It’s rather ironic that as I rise to speak on this bill, this will be the last day I rise as a member of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, as I’ve now moved on to another committee. I thank the other people for working—it has been a very constructive discussion and debate within the committee. I think it’s important to also acknowledge and thank all the officials—in particular, Dr Helen Poulsen. We had a fascinating day out at the Institute of Environmental Science and Research, watching how the process works, and it gave us all a level of confidence in the professionalism of the saliva-testing process.

I think we’ve got to remind ourselves why we are doing this—what is the why? Well, the why is very simple: it’s about road safety and lessening the chances of people getting hurt and killed on our roads. That is the reason. We’ve heard the stats and the correlation with alcohol- and drug-driving. We all immediately think about marijuana or P when we talk about these issues. Recently in Australia, there was an horrific bus crash—a group of people going to a wedding, I think it was, from memory. Ten people were killed. The driver was over the limit on tramadol; addicted to tramadol. I think that is a timely reminder of why this sort of legislation is so important.

Yes, there are elements in there that might not be absolutely perfect and give you a 100 percent result, but it’s that balance between the safety of the community, and the individual’s rights, which brings me to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (BORA) report, and that’s the weigh up. I’m personally very comfortable, and the Government’s comfortable overall, with the fact that the safety of the population and people driving on the road overrides the concerns of the BORA report.

There were two main other contentious issues on the committee. One of them was about impairment. It was quite timely, actually, that a person known to many of us—the Hon Dr Nick Smith—submitted on the bill. He reminded us, as the Minister did when he spoke, of the fact that when they did the alcohol legislation back in the early 1990s, the random breath testing, the same discussion about impairment came up, where you could have someone who was a very robust individual, big athletic person, I don’t know, maybe like the honourable member Peeni Henare on the other side of the House, versus myself, a lean, fit individual—that might be taking a little bit of licence—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member is just opening himself up for more debate. Back to the bill.

GRANT McCALLUM: Yes, yes. Look, with all due respect, Madam Speaker, it is relevant because what we’re saying is that we had the same discussion, because they were saying a larger person could drink the same amount of alcohol as a smaller person and, therefore, wouldn’t be as impaired, and, therefore, they shouldn’t be held to the same standard. Well, they just said no—that was an irrelevant argument. We went with a level that they accepted that was the level, and it was accepted by everybody, and look where we are today. Generally, we accept the fact that we have levels that the public recognise that if you’re above that level, then you are deemed to be unsafe to drive, and we’ve moved well on from that debate.

The other issue was around the whole randomness and the time limit side of it. First of all, the time limit. There was quite a discussion about this because people were worried that the police were going to hold people on the roadsides for a long, long, long period of time. Actually, when you think about that, that’s not actually what happens. The police don’t want to hold people for a lengthy period of time; their job is to process people as quickly as possible on the side of the road. If they get someone who they feel needs to be tested, if you have a time limit, then that could potentially be someone gaming the system. That is not what we want.

Look, I think most of the issues have been well and truly canvassed here. I’d like to thank everybody involved in this. I certainly commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I will take a minute at the beginning of my speech to lay out some of the concerns that the Labour Party still has with this legislation. There are a number of changes which will be litigated. They will be argued in court rooms around the country, and they will be argued on the roadside with police officers, so it is important to get those concerns up front as we move forward with this on the statute book. Then I’ll make some observations about the select committee process and the way that this might work, particularly when we come back to being able to review legislation like this.

First, I will touch on the heart of this issue. New Zealanders are good drivers and our attitudes to sober driving all of the time are changing for the good, and we need to be proud of that. We need our legislation to reflect New Zealanders’ changing attitudes about zero tolerance for drug-driving and for drink-driving. That’s happening at our sports clubs, at our pubs, and at family occasions. There is no tolerance around the country any more for going out and creating an undue risk to people who use the roads by drinking or by being under the influence, and so our law needs to reflect that. That was the exercise here. It wasn’t about creating new punishments. It was certainly not about setting out rules for drugs that we consider bad and harmful to society.

This was about making sure that New Zealanders can have a reasonable expectation that our societal changes to the way that we expect ourselves to conduct safe driving on the roads are then reflected in our legal system and we have a testing regime which puts sensible and reasonable rules in place about how the police are then meant to also live up to the public expectations of them.

It doesn’t do that perfectly, and I listened to the contributions of Ricardo Menéndez March and Julie Anne Genter, a member of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee who I very much respect and admire for her work in this space. But I disagreed with a few things. I disagreed with the idea that, if this was evidence based, it would be easy. It certainly isn’t. There is no standard test for impairment in these kinds of testing kits, and both of them were at pains, to be fair to them, to set that out in these speeches. That’s why we’re having this argument in the first place about the kind of allowances and pragmatism that our empowering legislation should empower police to enact our general Kiwi consensus that sober driving all the time is the only thing we should accept on our roads. It’s a hard thing to do.

The thing that I think will be litigated is the amount of time that it is fair for a driver to spend on the roadside when they have approached the system completely innocently. We talked at length in the select committee room, and I found some agreement from the ACT Party here on the idea that I, as a mum, could have picked my kids up from school and been detained on the roadside for a number of reasons for much longer than 15 minutes, which the Attorney-General found to be a breach of my rights.

On the first test, I might not be able to produce the amount of saliva required. In fact, we had our expert doctor Helen Poulsen, whom we are very grateful to, in the room with us. She gave us all the tests and one of our members—Andy Foster, the chair—could not produce the amount of saliva required in that 15 minutes. It just illustrates that ordinary people under ordinary circumstances, certainly not even members who aren’t stressed out on the side of the road with a cop and their kids in the back, can’t even manage to achieve it. That’s one issue that’s really weighing on my mind. The second one is that, in terms of these devices, we don’t actually know what we’re talking about. We’ve got the legislation empowering the procurement before the procurement has happened, and so we are making the most permissible rules that we possibly could.

What I want to get on the record here is that, if police are successful in procuring devices that take three or four minutes, as some do overseas, or if technology improves in time and they take like 30 seconds, like a breath-alcohol test, we do not expect that police will ever detain a driver on the roadside, on their first test, for more than 15 minutes. That is an unreasonable abrogation of their rights. That is something the committee desperately wanted to include in this legislation, but we could not because officials told us we could not include it, because their view of this procurement was that we could not procure those devices. We know things will change. That is not how legislation should be done, and we still have some discomfort around that.

The legislation should set out what we think is an appropriate protection of New Zealanders’ rights, and I think that someone in that situation who has come with clean hands, has not been at a party, and poses no danger to themselves or others around them on the road should never expect that they would be pulled over for more than 15 minutes on their way home with two kids in the car. That is not appropriate, and that is not something that we would have agreed to were it not put to us in very plain language by officials that that was not something that the procurement process would allow at this time.

When things change, we must come back to that and we must say to New Zealanders really clearly that they are not going to be subject to arbitrary detention on the roadside because of these rules that we have introduced now, given the kind of devices that will be used later.

I want to reflect on the role of the select committee, and to the member who has just resumed his seat, the outgoing deputy chairperson of the committee, I say I have very much enjoyed not only the contribution of New Zealand First through the chair, Andy Foster, but contributions from the National members, and that member in particular. We have managed to have a collegial discussion, not because it is a cross-party issue but because there are a number of members who showed up with really open minds to this very technical discussion about what kind of procurement process we would have and what kind of tests were available, and also a very legalistic discussion about the kinds of rights that New Zealanders can enjoy and the role of the State in their lives.

This was an example of a select committee making best use of the resources available to it, not only through the very able advice of the Office of the Clerk, and I do thank our select committee clerk for that, but through the advice of experts like Dr Helen Poulsen, and through the use of submitters who came to the committee and wanted to share with us their expertise. This is an example of where select committees can do their best work. I am really proud of the report we have put together for this House and I would encourage anyone who is interested in this area of law to read it. These are changes to the Land Transport Act that are coming from a place of pragmatism and a meeting of the minds of those in the House who would ensure that New Zealand’s laws are keeping up with New Zealanders’ expectations of safety.

The last thing I want to say is that there is a lot of room for improvement in the procurement processes that we can expect from the Public Service in this. A number of states in Australia are now reviewing the kinds of testing they are using, because people are raising issues and there is delay in the court system around the kind of evidence required and the kind of systems that allow police to present the evidence from the testing kits. This is really messy. We cannot rely on the science to do the job of the values that we as parliamentarians need to bring to this, because the science isn’t clear. The science doesn’t test for impairment. It doesn’t test how dangerous somebody is when they get behind the wheel of a car. But what we need to be able to do in this House, very clearly, is say that we will do everything to try to minimise the risk of drug-driving of those people who are using the roads, and this is one step towards that. The power in this legislation to be able to come back and review it, though, is incredibly important.

Again, I hope that when we come back for that review, we are in a mind-set as parliamentarians to approach it with open minds and to not let whatever is the politics of the day colour that mind-set and weigh into our decisions. Whether this works will come down to whether New Zealanders believe in it and whether they believe they should comply with it. We have to set rules that make sense, rules that people want to get behind and want to follow. I would like this to work. I hope that police can procure tests that work for everyone, are quick, are simple and effective, and can be relied upon, but we should be constantly monitoring that because we’ve made legislation here that is incredibly permissive—more permissive than usual—and so we have a duty as parliamentarians to watch what we have created here.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. As previous members have spoken to throughout this debate, it has been a fantastic piece of legislation to debate in the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, to really hammer it out and find a really good landing place, which I believe we have and which I believe the Minister articulated in his speech to the House previously at the start of debating this legislation.

I do want the record to show very, very clearly that the Green Party and the Māori Party will be opposing this legislation to enable the New Zealand Police to test people who drive vehicles in New Zealand for drugs, full stop. The Green Party and the Māori Party will not be supporting legislation to make our roads safer in this country. They will not be supporting legislation to enable our police to protect New Zealanders on our roads, full stop. That is an absolute disgrace in 2025.

It is a disgrace that political parties opposite don’t want to get in behind legislation which isn’t targeting specific individuals; it’s protecting New Zealanders and tourists visiting this country who drive on our roads every single day—protecting them. That is the intention of this legislation: to enable our police to have the ability to test drivers to ensure that they are in a position to legitimately operate a motor vehicle. That is the primary focus of this legislation, and it is a disgrace that the Green Party and the Māori Party will not get in behind and support this legislation.

Let’s remember that, in 2023, there were 64 deaths where the presence of drugs was detected in the driver—64 preventable deaths in this country where the driver had detections for drugs in their system. A further 32—half of that 64—had both drugs and alcohol in their system at the exact same time. There is a direct correlation between the two of those, and it is a very, very dangerous combination. We definitely, definitely need to do anything we possibly can to protect New Zealanders and tourists on our road, and enabling this legislation does exactly that.

Let’s talk about the process. Drivers who failed the first oral screening test would be required to undergo a second. That plays that sort of safety net there. That false positive which can occasionally happen—they are required to undergo a second one. An oral fluid sample will also be sent to the laboratory for analysis, as we’ve talked about this evening as well. Drivers who receive two positive tests at the roadside are prohibited from driving for 12 hours. The reason behind that is to ensure that we protect the others on the road over that 12-hour period if we know they’re impaired.

Just remember, this is a coalition Government committed to giving the police the tools they need to improve the detection of drug-driving, and we’re setting them an ambitious target that we want them to undertake 50,000 oral fluid tests per year once the drug-driving testing regime is implemented. It’s ambitious, but we know our New Zealand Police are incredible people across this country who, every single day, pull on their uniform to do their best to protect our communities.

I’m proud to have a brother who’s a police officer down in Christchurch. I know that he goes to that job every single day to protect our vulnerable communities and to protect all New Zealanders. It doesn’t matter who it is; when they ring, they go. This enables them to do their job to protect people on our roads to detect drugs. I commend this bill to the House.

This call is a split call.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker, and, if I may, I’d like to take this opportunity for my first speech in this House in 2025 to acknowledge the passing of my friend, mentor, and matriarch Ann Hartley. Ann Hartley served in this House—and, in fact, in that Chair, Madam Speaker—from 1999 to 2008. She was a fierce wahine and everyone knew where she stood on particular issues. She stood for the right issues, and I know that many colleagues around this House valued the contribution that she made both to being the MP for Northcote and to Aotearoa New Zealand. E te whaea, moe mai rā.

I stand today to speak on the Land Transport (Drug Driving) Amendment Bill. As I listened to the speeches across the House, I’m reminded particularly of what both the industry and sector asked of us as we look forward in transport and infrastructure, and that was a sense of unity and collaboration to address the issues that this country faces in this particular area. I agree with Ricardo Menéndez March, who invited a debate in this House around road safety, because while I’m incredibly passionate about this particular subject, I find the intent of this particular piece of legislation inconsistent with the way that this Government has prioritised road safety in other legislation and, particularly, political hits under Minister Simeon Brown across their term in Government.

What I hope is that under the new Minister, Minister Bishop, he takes, as the sector asks for, the more sensible approach to addressing issues in the transport sector of not just prioritising roads but, in this instance, prioritising road safety. People have been very clear about what they want this Government to achieve in this area, and, yes, in fact, this particular bill is consistent with the appetite of our public. Mr Assistant Speaker O’Connor, you may in fact remember, in your time as chair—and I continued along from yourself as the chair of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee—the work that we completed in initiating this particular bill. We heard very loudly the road safety issues—the deaths, the issues that we heard at roadside—and I do acknowledge the work of this term of Parliament’s Transport and Infrastructure Committee, ably chaired by Andy Foster from New Zealand First.

What I do take away from that time is that, actually, this is a very sensitive topic. I acknowledge that others in the House—Te Pāti Māori and the Greens—aren’t supporting this bill, and that’s not because they don’t support the intent of it of addressing the issues around road safety; it’s because under our system of the past, actually, we’re still overcoming the impact of bias in the system against Māori and against Pasifika, and there is an imbalance of evidence in many respects—as Labour has raised in select committee—on this issue that does feed into the sensitivities that many in this country feel, and I look at the number of submissions that came through in that sense. I don’t accept the member from the National Party taking an attack on those two parties. It actually shows that he misunderstands what the public is telling him when it comes to addressing this particular issue.

Labour does stand by moving this through. I think it’s very clear that the technology still needs to evolve, and so, in two years’ time, five years’ time, or 10 years’ time, we will be able to update that technology to secure, I guess, a level of evidence that we are all comfortable with. We do know that there is an issue around road safety, drug use, and people driving. We want to address that. It started under Labour, it’s continuing with this piece of legislation, and I commend it to the House.

Tomorrow is Chinese New Year. I would like to use this opportunity to wish everyone who celebrates Lunar New Year a happy New Year. 恭喜发财，新年快乐.

Now, let’s go back to the bill. We want to mention that this Government is committed to improving road safety and restoring law and order. It is disappointing to hear that the Green Party and the Māori Party are opposing this bill, because this bill is going to save lives. Alcohol and drugs are the number one contributing factor in fatal road crashes in New Zealand, responsible for approximately 30 percent of overall death. In every year, more than 100 precious lives are lost because of road crashes related to alcohol- and drug-driving.

Just now we heard from a previous speaker from the Green Party that one of the reasons why she opposed this bill is she believed that most of the fatal car crashes are caused by alcohol, not drugs. Straight away, there’s an incident that goes through my mind: two years ago, a drug-driver who goes behind the wheel, who is high on P, armed with a loaded gun, reaching a speed limit between 200 to 250 kilometres per hour before he lost control and killed an innocent father of two driving home from work. On that day, a lovely family was destroyed. It is heartbreaking. I doubt that that member from the Green Party can actually stand in front of this family, this heartbroken family, and tell them that this is just one of the exceptional cases. I don’t believe that anyone should experience this pain.

This is why we’re bringing back three strikes, this is why we’re capping the sentence discount, and this is why we are giving our police the tools they need to get some of the highest-risk drivers off our roads. This is what New Zealanders have asked us to do, and we are delivering.

With these amendment bills, I’m looking forward to seeing police testing anyone they think is under the influence of drugs, both on the streets of Mt Roskill and across the country. I’m looking forward to this bill driving down the numbers of drug-related crashes and deaths on our roads, and I’m looking forward to this bill serving as a deterrence to anyone on drugs who thinks of getting behind the wheel. My final message to anyone who thinks they can use drugs and get behind the wheel is that your time is up. You can expect to be stopped, you can expect to be tested, and you can expect to face the consequences. I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Thank you very much. It’s good to see this bill progressing. It has taken its time, and part of that delay has been the technology that’s available and making sure that we have a legislative process that reflects what technology can do in this space.

The process, as I understand it, is that once pulled over, someone completes a saliva test. If that’s negative, they’re on their way; if that’s positive, they have a second test. If that second test is positive, they are then taken off the road for 12 hours and that saliva is sent to a lab for testing to show what the substance is that has turned up in the saliva. The saliva won’t show what drug is in the system; it’ll just say there is a drug. There have been some issues raised around what the science can do, and it’s important that we outline those limitations because we’re soon going to find out about those limitations as this legislation is implemented and as people encounter this law when it’s enforced.

We foresee that these things will play out in the courts, and the courts will need to interpret what this legislation has intended and how it is played out, but if you listen to the ACT Party, the courts don’t make laws at all. Under the Treaty principles bill, only Parliament makes law in New Zealand, according to the ACT Party. So good luck to the courts, according to them, because they can’t do that function.

What lab tests can do—it’s important to note that they will only pick up a drug family. We looked into this, and I looked into this as the Minister of Police when I was there. Things like opioids—it will pick up not only heroin but also tramadol, poppies; anything in the opioid family will be recognised in that space. Similarly with amphetamines, P will be picked up as an amphetamine, but there’s also diet pills, there’s also ADHD medication; there’s a whole lot of things that get picked up in that drug family of amphetamines. Similarly with things that have been prescribed through medicinal cannabis, cannabidiol (CBD) oil or even topical treatments that have CBD oil and THC within them, that will be picked up within that testing.

It’s really difficult to show impairment, and that is the main issue that will be problematic. With alcohol, it is quite clear; when you’re above a certain level, it’s clear you can’t be able to drive a car. It’s not as cut and dry with drugs, because someone can have, long term, an amount of THC, for example, in their system but not be impaired. That’ll be an issue for us to sort through as we see people who are on prescriptions going before the courts, having to show the medical evidence that they followed the direction from the doctor in taking the medication. If they were prescribed and told not to drive and they did, then clearly that’s fine; but if they are taking their medication as directed by their medical professional and have subsequently been ticketed or taken by this legislation, then that is something that we’re going to have to understand how that works.

It is my sincere hope that having this legislation in place will have a deterrent effect on people who are thinking about taking any substance and driving. I’m always hugely heartened by the real change in attitude the younger generation has; young people just don’t drink and drive. Sadly, it’s the older generation who still try and fail and cause huge damage to the lives of others when they make those careless mistakes. I really do hope that it’s not seen as a way of circumventing the system now that we have, hopefully, a method that’s workable in place, that can test—that that will be a strong message out to New Zealanders that you cannot take substances that impair your ability to drive and get away with it, because it risks the lives of those around us.

I think it’s also important to note that there’s been some issues raised in terms of detainment. Particularly the Attorney-General, under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—there’s been some areas raised around freedom from reasonable search and seizure, and also the right not to be arbitrarily detained. I know that police will be going through a thorough process of making sure, in terms of police instructions, that officers have all of that information as part of this legislation being implemented to a point of when it’s able to be enforced. It’ll be really critical that that’s followed closely, particularly given this has not yet been tested in the courts and it will be that first case that comes that we’ll have to watch closely to see where things are working and where things need to be improved.

I think that’s good that we have a level of agreement in this House about road safety and what’s important to make sure that we make our roads safer, that we’re sending the right messages to our communities about how to approach road safety. It’s also important that we are giving people who don’t have the right to speak back or to represent themselves access to justice. One of the concerns we’ve seen with limitations to legal aid, with taking away some of the assistance for people who can’t afford a lawyer, is that it is a real concern that if someone does encounter this legislation but doesn’t have the right information, the right access to justice, and the right supports, they might be less likely to get the ability to argue their case than others. That’s always a concern—so, keeping a close eye on the statistics we see, of those who are coming up against this law, and understanding whether access to justice was, in fact, one of the factors that resulted in this occurring. I think it’s also important to note that this is a demerit and a fine system, and so we need to make sure to see if that’s working effectively or not.

Overall, I look forward to seeing this implemented. I look forward to seeing how it works, and I would like to commend the Transport and Infrastructure Committee for the thorough job they did in trying to make this legislation as workable as possible. When you see a select committee has actually gone to the effort to go and visit an Environmental Science and Research lab and understand how the science works, that shows that those MPs are working hard and doing their job. I thank them for the effort of understanding an area that can be complex in order to try and get the best piece of legislation possible before we’ve completed this work. I commend it to the House.

Excellent. Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is with great pleasure that I stand in support of the Land Transport (Drug Driving) Amendment Bill. Before talking about the bill itself, I do just want to acknowledge the hard work of the New Zealand Police in keeping our roads safe. I also want to acknowledge the first responders who often have to come when there has been a traffic accident. We know that a lot of those are very traumatic situations, so I do just want to acknowledge the first responders that turn up. We’ve heard a lot about the work of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. I also want to commend them on their work that they do.

This is an important piece of legislation that will significantly improve the safety on our roads. For too long, drug-impaired drivers have been a serious threat, causing preventable deaths and injuries. This bill will finally provide the necessary tools to tackle that problem very effectively. The statistics are alarming. I won’t go into too many details, because we have heard them over and over again. In 2023, 64 fatalities involved drivers with drugs in their system. A further 32 had both drugs and alcohol. These figures are not just numbers but these are real lives lost. These are real families shattered and we must act to prevent further tragedy. Of course, this does not include those that are seriously injured but do not pass away from their injuries.

This amendment bill will reflect those critical flaws in our current legislation, paving the way for a roll-out of roadside oral fluid screening tests. This is about targeting those who choose to drive under the influence of drugs; not about infringing the rights of responsible citizens. Now, I do just point out that we do have support across the House, except for the Green Party and Te Pāti Māori. I suppose it’s not really that surprising. The Green Party opposition—I don’t know whether their opposition is actually to the driving part or the drugs part; I’m not quite sure. They did mention they had some difficulty between the presence of drugs and the level of impairment, but when we think about this a little bit, these tests detect a wide range of drugs and, in turn, families of drugs, which, of course, have a wide range of pharmacokinetics, which, of course, has different impacts on different people and move through our systems at different rates. This is on the roadside ability to have a quick screen and then, of course, we can go for a blood test further on, which brings it in line with our alcohol testing as well.

I think it’s very important that we send a very clear message. I think this side of the House especially is sending the message that, if you do drugs, don’t drive. Of course, you can choose to take drugs or not, but you can’t choose whether you’re crashed into by a driver that’s drugged out of their brain. It does come back down to that being a choice, then, whether you get behind the wheel after you have taken drugs. All in all, I think this is a good thing. It gives the police the tools they need. It must be very frustrating, when they pull over a driver and they know drugs are in the system, not to have the tools to really kind of make sure that our roads are safe, and I think this bill will give them that. Therefore, I commend it to the House.

The question is that the amendments recommended by the Transport and Infrastructure Committee by majority be agreed to.