Moroney Sue: Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Moroney Sue: Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:671;Page:18066] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 I am very pleased that I have the call to talk about the commencement dates—the various commencement dates actually—of the Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. The bill is structured quite differently from most bills we have been debating in this Chamber in that it has four different times at which various parts of the legislation will come into being. I invite the Minister in charge of this bill Steven Joyce to give some insight into why we have four different time frames for various sections of this legislation to come into being. 
We have the bill in front of us and I want to let listeners know that a whole series of clauses will come into force 90 days after the date of Royal assent. They seem to be mainly—clause 6 is one of them—a grouping of issues about the way that licensing will happen. That is what they appear to be to me but it would be great to get some clarification from the Minister himself. 
Then there is another group of clauses. They seem clearer to me because they are about taking blood specimens. I expect that this group is about letting our health system prepare for a new way of dealing with blood specimens because clauses 31 to 35 and clause 37 which happen to be about the way in which blood specimens will be dealt with by our health system will come into force 180 days after the date of Royal assent. So one bunch of new rules is coming in 90 days after the date of Royal assent and another bunch is coming in 180 days after the date of Royal assent. 
Then there is a third group which seems to be mainly about the issues that have been mostly debated in this bill— 
Michael Woodhouse 
: All for good reasons Sue. If you’d been in the committee you’d understand why it was like that. 
SUE MORONEY 
: Well I invite the member Michael Woodhouse who was on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to get up and give clarification because we are debating the commencement clause and it is important for the Committee of the whole House to understand the insights the select committee members had on that clause. I would be really pleased to hear Michael Woodhouse take a call to enlighten me on this issue. 
The clauses in the third group seem to be about the zero blood-alcohol limit which Tau Henare was so confused about. They seem to be about the new interlock system that we can use. But we are not told how many days after Royal assent the clauses will come in. The dates are even more vague—if that is possible. Clause 2(3) states that these particular clauses—and I will not read them all out; there are a number of them—“come into force on a date to be appointed by the Governor-General by Order in Council and 1 or more orders may be made appointing different dates for different provisions.” So we could have about a dozen probably up to 18 different dates for each of those clauses to come in; that seems to be a bit of a shambles. Then clause 2(4) states that everything else the rest of the Act “comes into force on the day after the date of Royal assent.” Probably by my estimation there are about 30 different dates then on which all of this legislation could come into being and I think that that will be very very confusing. 
It will be very confusing for the authorities who need to administer this Act including the police. I think the police will have a bit of a nightmare working out which provision comes in when. Most of the provisions of the Act are coming in the day after the date of Royal assent. Then about a dozen clauses will come in 90 days after the date of Royal assent and three clauses which all seem to apply to the health system will come in 180 days after the date of Royal assent. As I said before about 18—I have not stopped to count them—different clauses will come in on a date we do not know about and they might all come in on different dates according to the commencement clause. So it is really important for the Committee of the whole House to understand exactly what is going on with what I think are the approximately 30 or more different dates on which the various provisions of this bill are to be enacted and the reasons behind that. 
Why I ask the question—and I really would like the Minister to respond—[ 
Interruption 
] Tau Henare may not be interested in the shambles the police might be left with over the dates on which they will have to deal with various parts of the Act coming in but I certainly am. I would expect that the Minister of Police Judith Collins might be really keen to hear what the explanation is and exactly how the police will deal with different parts of the Act coming in at different times. They will need to understand that in order to do their planning. Legislation like this makes quite a big difference to the police force in the way it will be administered so it is really important that the police understand which clauses are going to come in after 90 days and whether those clauses are the bits they are to administer. The Ministry of Health needs to understand so that it can get its orders and instructions out to hospitals up and down the country in relation to the provisions that come in after 180 days and that seem to apply to them. The ministry needs to know how it will manage those provisions. 
I will have to look at various clauses because all of the next bunch will actually come into force on a date that as stated in clause 2(3) “may be made appointing different dates for different provisions.” Those clauses are clauses 5 6 16 21 22 24 28 and so on. I will not read through them all but for example clause 5 is about “Drivers to be licensed”. That is the provision that takes away the concept of a limited licence which we are used to in this country and brings in three new licences. There is “an alcohol interlock licence”—so that will obviously be an issue for the licensing authority—“a zero alcohol licence or a limited licence”. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. 
SUE MORONEY 
: I will take full advantage of the 2 minutes I have left to debate the commencement clause because before the dinner break I was seeking clarification. I am hoping that the Minister who is responsible for this bill will be able to cast some light on the matter because it is very confusing. Clause 5 for example is about the new ways in which drivers will be licensed for “an alcohol interlock licence a zero alcohol licence or a limited licence.” Those are all new categories. That provision will come in— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member. It is a longstanding convention in this Chamber that members should not conduct conversations in the Chamber unless it is necessary to do so and then not to disturb the proceedings and the member speaking. 
SUE MORONEY 
: The clause I just referred to will come into force under clause 2(3) “on a date to be appointed by the Governor-General by Order in Council and 1 or more orders may be made appointing different dates for different provisions.” That gives us no clue about the sort of time frame when that particular clause will come into force. It is a very important clause because it is about the new licensing regime that will be brought in by this bill. Yet part of the very next clause clause 6(1) will come into force 90 days after the Royal assent. Clause 6 is the clause stating that drivers are not to exceed specified alcohol limits. It is all very confusing. 
I think it will be very confusing for the authorities who will need to operationalise this legislation because they will not have any idea when they will be able to issue those new licences. The commencement clause clause 2 gives no clue whatsoever about when—even roughly when—that new regime will come into being; subclause (3) states that the date will be “appointed by the Governor-General by Order in Council” and that it could come into force on “different dates for different provisions.” 
It is my contention that we are no further ahead in terms of this commencement clause about when these provisions will be coming in. I think they are really important provisions because I know that families out there want to know when their 15-year-olds will be able to sit for their licences or whether they will have to wait until they are 16. It is really important for this to be understood.