Locke Keith: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Locke Keith: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:629;Page:1929] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 One of the problems with the National Party is that it is not placing sufficient trust in the Director of Land Transport to use his or her discretion in this matter. 
Shane Jones 
: They need to be more humanitarian. 
KEITH LOCKE 
: Yes. The Director of Land Transport will obviously be in the firing line if he or she gets it wrong so he or she will spend a lot of time on each case. Wayne Mapp goes on about not trusting people who have committed serious offences but I suggest that the director will go through the process by looking at the seriousness of the offence the penalty applied and the length of time that has passed since the offence was committed—and other factors will be taken into consideration. 
In terms of the seriousness of offences we have looked at the ones that are at the lower end of the scale. There has been a lot of talk about carnal knowledge offences which are not deemed to be so serious these days and about the penalty for those offences. Even in the past when they were treated more seriously the penalty was not great. So the director will have an easier road ahead in terms of granting an exemption in those cases. Then we go on to what we consider to be the more serious offences. In my second reading speech I mentioned a person who was convicted of aggravated robbery. Obviously aggravated robbery is a serious offence but one has to take into account the penalty. In the case I gave the person convicted of aggravated robbery who is in the taxi industry right now received a penalty of 6 months’ periodic detention. So clearly the Director of Land Transport would say that that person was at the lighter end of that serious offence given that he received only 6 months’ periodic detention and other factors would be taken into consideration as well. 
Details I provided of another case involve somebody who was convicted of a crime—whose case would come under clause 3—and who wants to get into the industry and drive disabled people around. This person has a great aptitude in that direction—good empathy—but he had received a more serious sentence of 3 years in jail. Unfortunately even under Jim Anderton’s amendment bill that person would not get into the industry although the Greens would like the director’s discretion to go further in order to allow that. If the Green approach had been adopted the Director of Land Transport again would say: “It is a very serious offence. I will have to look at that case very closely. This person has a hard road—3 years’ imprisonment—to justify the circumstance.” The director would then go on to consider the third factor which is how long ago the offence was committed. In the example I gave the offence happened 25 years ago. When one talks about 25 years ago in terms of the aggravated robbery conviction with 3 years’ imprisonment or the other example I provided of aggravated robbery with 6 months’ periodic detention both of those cases happened many years ago—one case was 30 years ago and the other case was 25 years ago. Presumably the Director of Land Transport would have plenty of supporting evidence from people who had known those people over the years and could make a fairly good judgment. I have no doubt that the director would err on the side of caution given the concern in the community about taking too many risks with people driving others around—be it in a taxi or in a bus. It can be worked out if one trusts the Director of Land Transport. Somebody who committed a crime 25 or 30 years ago may even be a member of Parliament—who knows? In respect of this bill people do not seem to need the same qualification to become a member of Parliament as they do to become a bus driver or a taxi driver. 
I listened very closely to Hone Harawira’s very good speech in the second reading debate. One thing we have to bear in mind is that people often commit those crimes in their youth; they are often tearaways who get out of control due to bad parenting or whatever the problem is and they overcome that disadvantage later in life come right and really star in society. Those people should be given a chance. As we all know a high proportion of those people—50 percent of our prison population—is Maori. So if someone goes ahead and says as National does that no one who has ever been in prison should be given any discretion that person is being a bit discriminatory.