Fenton Darien: Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Fenton Darien: Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:671;Page:18030] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I am happy to take a call on Part 1 of the Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. Part 1 is the guts of the bill. It has the majority of the various provisions in the bill so I imagine that we will have a fairly long and lengthy debate on this part. I too want to address a couple of concerns upfront. I will start with the blood-alcohol limit. My colleague Shane Jones has started the debate in a very eloquent way. I advise the Minister of Transport that Labour is here to help. We have tabled an amendment that will allow him to save face by agreeing to decrease the blood-alcohol content limit from 0.08 to 0.05 grams. The reason he needs to take this amendment seriously is that everybody supports a decrease. We have only to look at the variety of polls there have been; numerous polls have been conducted throughout the country. People are extremely puzzled about why the Minister and the National Government are not prepared to put this amendment into this bill or into another bill if it were the appropriate vehicle. 
I am not sure that the Minister has taken an awful lot of notice of the submissions on the bill. There were a lot of submitters who came to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. There were 81 submitters and we heard from 31 I think. Many of them were concerned about the lowering of the adult blood-alcohol content. We are saying very strongly—like the New Zealand public has been saying very strongly—that we think now is the time for us to do it. We do not agree that the Government should be kicking this to touch and using the excuse that it needs to have 2 years of research. The advice from officials is very very clear that a lower blood-alcohol limit will prevent between 15 and 33 deaths and from 320 to 688 serious injuries. That on its own is enough to take action rather than waiting for a couple of years. 
There have been 300 international studies—300 international studies—that have all shown the road-safety benefits from lowering the blood-alcohol concentration. We do not believe that collecting New Zealand - specific data is necessary because of those 300 international studies. What is so different about New Zealand? We do not understand why we have to go to the expense why we have to spend money when the country is struggling why we are wasting money on collecting research that we do not need and why we are not taking action right now. 
I want to refer to some of the submissions that came to the select committee. There were a range of groups. There were some very concerned groups. A group from Whangaparaoa and Rodney came down; 77 of them were involved in putting together a submission. The Seventh Day Adventist Church Grey Power Auckland area committee Active West Coast Christchurch City Council the Drug Foundation and the Cycling Advocates Network all said that we should be taking the opportunity to reduce the blood-alcohol content from 0.08 to 0.05 grams. Alcohol Healthwatch strongly supported that also. It should know—it has to deal with the consequences of people who have problems with alcohol. We know we have a culture of binge drinking. We know we have alcohol problems in our country at the moment. The Law Commission has highlighted that very clearly. Alcohol Healthwatch talked about how we need to change people’s drinking behaviour. That would not only stop crashes and people dying on the roads but also it would lead to better outcomes in other areas such as being less of a drain on the health sector. 
Some other really significant groups came to the select committee such as the Drink Driving Intervention Trust. Professor Doug Sellman from the National Addiction Centre was extremely interesting. He strongly recommended that we lower the blood-alcohol limit. He said that the current blood-alcohol limit amounts to legalised drink-driving. I think the Minister of Transport himself was very surprised when he found out that he could drink three-quarters of a bottle of wine and still get behind the wheel and drive legally—[ 
Interruption 
]—and still run the Cabinet agenda; that is right. Professor Sellman went on to say that there is enough international evidence to show that lowering the blood-alcohol limit has positive effects on lowering the incidence of drink-driving—not just saving lives and stopping injuries but actually changing behaviour. That is one of the key measures the Government should be taking. 
The  
Herald on Sunday  
ran a campaign on lowering the blood-alcohol limit and some people signed up to it. I am not sure whether members of the Government were brave enough to put their names to it but I know some of them agree with what the  
Herald on Sunday  
said. It held a nationwide campaign to get New Zealanders to pledge to two drinks max. It also said that there is enough evidence to show that we would get real positive results from changing the blood-alcohol content. 
The Alcohol Advisory Council also recommended lowering the blood-alcohol limit. It talked about changing the drinking culture of New Zealand. The problem with the drinking culture in relation to our roads is that if people can drink three-quarters of a bottle of wine like the Minister did and be legally smashed but then get into a car and drive why would they change their behaviour? They think that is OK. They measure the number of glasses of wine they can have or the beers they can have. They say that as long as they have not had three-quarters of a bottle of wine they are OK. They do not think about how that impairs their driving they do not think about the impact that it has on their ability to drive safely and they do not think about the impact it has on other drivers as well. 
Members of Rural Women New Zealand were very interesting as well. I would have thought they are a good group and good friends of the Government but they said that the Government should be lowering the blood-alcohol limit across the board and most of their members actually support zero tolerance. We are not suggesting that; we are simply saying that we should use the international research that is available to us. Why does this Government not take a brave step that will save between 15 and 33 lives every year? We do not need to wait for 2 years for New Zealand - specific research. The New Zealand Nurses Organisation represents nurses and knows about the impacts of alcohol and drink-driving. It has said that judgment about the ability to drive safely is severely compromised at 0.08 grams. It also suggested a nationwide education programme. In addition to lowering the blood-alcohol concentration a nationwide education programme should ensure better understanding of alcohol-related harm and the associated costs of this harm because as I have said it is not just about people dying other road users being at risk and people being injured; it is the cost to the health system and to people’s lives. Losing someone in an instant on the roads has an enormous impact on people’s lives. If they are badly injured of course there is an ongoing cost both to the families and to our health system. 
So there were many submissions in support of lowering the blood-alcohol concentration and a number of polls and trials have been conducted throughout the country. A number of employees at media organisations including those from the  
Herald on Sunday 
 ran tests to see how much they could drink and still be legally below the limit. They found it quite frightening that they were able to get behind the wheel and drive their cars on the road. 
As my colleague Shane Jones has said we support quite a number of the features in Part 1. We support the zero limit for repeat drink-drivers because that addresses the issue of drink-driving. We also support the zero limit for drivers under 20 years of age. The provision relating to alcohol interlock devices is a good thing; we really support that. We support doubling the minimum sentence time for drugged or reckless driving that causes death. People have to start taking this seriously. But unfortunately they will not take it seriously until this Government takes the brave step that it needs to supports the amendment that I have put forward and gets on and lowers the blood-alcohol limit instead of mucking around for another 2 years looking for New Zealand - specific research. It should not muck around with that; it should get on with it. Let us fix it up. Otherwise we think the Government has copped out on this. It is a cop-out. It has done some good things in this bill. There are some things that we disagree with but the Government could make it better by agreeing to lower the blood-alcohol concentration.