Bennett David: Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Bennett David: Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:642;Page:12529] 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 I thought that was an excellent speech from the Minister for Transport Safety the Hon Harry Duynhoven. It identified some key elements that we will have to look at in the Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill. 
I know that it is quite easy for us to say we will increase the minimum driver licensing age and that that will solve the problem of traffic accidents involving young drivers but I do not see age as necessarily being the problem. If we increase the age to 16 I think we will still encounter some of the difficulties we have now with 15-year-old drivers. I think Harry Duynhoven touched on a number of issues in his speech that are crucial to what the select committee needs to look at and what we need to look at as a Parliament. I would like us to ask ourselves what age we were when we started driving. Were we driving at 15? A lot of us were and it was something we found to be a very important part of our ability to get around our communities to get to work to get to school and to do a lot of activities that we would never have done if we had not had the ability to drive. So I ask members to think of that question and I wish that members would want to have a look at some other things—for example the fact that the problem is not a matter of age. 
In this House we have had legislation—for example minimum wage bills—come through where people have argued that 16 and 17-year-olds have the same ability as 18 and 19-year-olds to work the same maturity and all those factors. Yet here we are doing the opposite; we are increasing the age at which young people have responsibility instead of decreasing it as we were expected to do in the minimum wage area. There is no consistency there in rationale. I know there is a difference in age but there has to be some consistency also in rationale. How many people will want to trust young people? I say that we do want to trust our young people. These young people have a lot of opportunities out there and they need to be given some respect. 
I think that the Minister raised some very good points. The question is not about the age; the question is about the limits we put on people at that age. If we look at what the Minister said some of the issues we can look at are the times young people can drive their hours of driving perhaps the vehicles they can drive and how long they will be in a situation where they have to be supervised. Those are the key issues. Those are the things we need to debate and find solutions for. Raising the age is just a political attempt to get something forthright that the Government can go out and sell. It does not necessarily solve the problem because the problem will move. If we change the age to 16 we are taking the chance that 16-year-olds will then make up the high percentage of accident victims. There is the chance that 16-year-olds will then represent the people learning to drive by themselves rather than the 15-year-olds who are learning to drive by themselves now. We could easily just move the problem up a year and just say then that 16-year-olds are the problem rather than 15-year-olds. 
The mover of this legislation put up some very interesting statistics and they will be good to see at the select committee. But there is one question I want Mr Dunne the mover of this legislation to answer in relation to those statistics—that is after a breakdown of the statistics to show how many accidents occurred as a result of young drivers being outside the rules they should have followed. How many of those accidents were in relation to young drivers who were drinking speeding or driving outside the hours they were allowed to drive? I ask Mr Dunne to give us those statistics because they are the real statistics they show the people who are breaking the rules. If we change the age to 16 we will have 15-year-olds breaking the rules and we will have 16-year-olds speeding drinking and driving outside the hours they should. 
The real question does not concern the age; the real question is whether these people are breaking the rules. If it is the case that they are breaking the rules—which I believe on my gut feeling that it probably will be—then we need to deal with that issue. That is the real issue. Are our enforcement provisions strong enough? Are the rules tight enough? Are we setting the right rules in the first place? Those are the real issues. That is what we need to debate in this House; that is what the select committee needs to work out. If young people just think because they are 16 that they are driving and they are not going to break the rules then they have some big lessons to come their way. It is not a matter that at 15 and 16 there is a huge change in maturity that changes the ability to break or not to break the law. 
Another thing we need to look at—and I think that the Minister was correct about bringing this out—is that driving solo is where we see the real risk of an increase in accidents. That period of driving solo is when the percentages of accidents increase. Well are we moving those percentages just to an older age group? Is that the real problem rather than the fact that young people are 15 when they actually begin to engage in driving? That is a question that I would like the mover of this legislation to give us the research on rather than just give us those figures that relate to all driving statistics and are not broken down. 
I think we need to look at the practicalities as well. A lot of people have said that in rural communities we cannot have this measure. You know people have to drive to be able to go to school to go to work or whatever it is. But the reality is that I do not believe that just rural communities are affected now. All our communities have changed and I ask how many kids go to school on a bike in urban communities? Very few! That is why we have such congestion at 9 o’clock in the morning and 3 o’clock in the afternoon. People have changed the mode of transport they use. Their kids are either driven to school or they drive themselves to school. That is why we are trying to have initiatives like walking buses and so on to try to break down that driving culture. But the transport culture is a culture that has changed in New Zealand and over the last few years the days of kids biking to school has not been the reality because of safety issues. There has been a fundamental change in New Zealand. So I say that it is not just rural communities that will want an exemption; many urban communities out there have a lot of children who go to school by car and who will want an exemption as well. They will see that they will also be affected by legislation like this. 
When we look at legislation and try to look at communities that have changed we also need to look at the way in which work environments have changed. Most people now live in two-income families. Both parties in those families basically have to go out and work these days. One will have to work to pay the mortgage and one to pay the living expenses. That is what the reality is in a lot of communities. But we are saying to those people who are going out there doing it hard and doing all the right things that they may have to wait another year before they can be that two-income family. They may have to wait another year because we are changing this rule. A lot of people do not go to work because they know that they have those kinds of responsibilities transporting their children and they are looking forward to giving their kids the opportunity to take some responsibility. That saves some money because people can go out and work as a two-income family. That is the reality of the communities we live in now. The days are gone where there was just one provider in the house; the world has changed. If we deny those families the ability to have two incomes then we are denying a lot of people a lot of respect and a lot of time in the workforce. 
Personally I think that this legislation is not the right approach at the moment. I will be on the select committee and I am looking forward to the information coming forward. I support the bill going to the select committee and I support the debate. I would like to see the mover of this legislation Peter Dunne give us the real figures in relation to young people who are breaching rules. I think that will be crucial. We need to look at this issue of the minimum driver-licensing age on a wider scale. Are we willing to take away the rights of young people just for a political convenience or is there a real reason why we are doing this? If there is a real reason then I think we will find that the bill has the support of the House. But if it is merely for political convenience or for show then I do not believe we should make legislation on that basis. This is too big an issue—to take away the rights of young people just for the power of getting votes. We need to be very careful of that in this House.