Fenton Darien: Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Fenton Darien: Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:666;Page:14075] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 That was a very unpopular speech from a very unpopular member David Bennett who likes to talk about unpopularity. I think he is probably an expert in unpopularity particularly when it comes to talking about trains between Waikato and Auckland—boy is that member confused about that issue! As my colleague Darren Hughes said we will be voting for the first reading of the Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. We support it because we have done a lot on road safety over the last 9 years—a lot of what this bill builds on although there are gaps in it and I will get to those. It builds on Labour’s own programme called See You There—Safe As. Do members remember that? It was an excellent road safety programme that touched on many of the areas that the Government is now promoting through its Safer Journeys programme. As I say a lot of good work has been done and I will acknowledge that. 
This is a very comprehensive bill and again I join my colleague in saying that I am disappointed about its fast track through the select committee process. I am a member of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and we are quite busy. We have a couple of major employment law bills in front of us with hundreds and hundreds—indeed thousands—of submissions to be heard in a very short time frame. Then here we have very serious legislation about road safety being rushed through as well. I think the chance to consider what is in this bill will be curtailed by that process. 
I want to talk about two issues. The Minister did not say anything about them but I am interested in two things. One issue is the provisions around work time the tightening up of logbooks and the chain of responsibility in relation to truck drivers. The second issue I want to talk about is young drivers and increasing the minimum driving age from 15 to 16. In 2009 there were 54 people killed in truck-related accidents and 1133 people were injured. Economic factors are having a direct impact on the death and injury toll in this industry. So although I am pleased to see that there will be a little bit of tightening up around the work and logbook rules and although I am also pleased to see the reference to chain of responsibility I do not think that it goes anywhere far enough. 
A lot has been done on truck safety over the last 9 years—15 years in fact because there was an inquiry into truck crashes in the late 1990s. We had a horrific accident injury rate and a lot of things have been done. There have been safety improvements and truck injuries have reduced; even though one person a week still dies in a truck-related accident as a percentage of all road users the number of people dying in truck-related deaths and injuries is actually flat-lining. 
But the problem that is not being addressed and that this bill does not address in the trucking industry the transport industry the road freight industry—which is growing massively; we know that freight will increase massively over the next 30 years—is the hypercompetitive nature of the industry the very tight margins for the business and the unsafe contracting that is going on for owner-drivers. 
Back in April there was a story in the  
Sunday Star-Times  
about some owner-drivers and what was happening to them. It was a horrific story about what was happening to them and the link between the way they were being treated through their owner-driver contracts and unsafe and dangerous driving. So I proposed to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee at that time that we should look at an investigation. Of course that was just dismissed out of hand and the Government voted against it. But this is a serious issue. Truck drivers have talked to me about the problems in their industry with unfair and unsafe contracting for owner-drivers leading them to drive up to 100 hours a week—the limit is 70 hours a week. They are scrimping on maintenance and they are taking risks that impact not only on them and their families but on all road users. It is an industry-wide problem with trucking companies which are squeezing owner-drivers. 
As I said it is a highly marginal and competitive industry and the monopoly at the top of the transport industry chain or the supply chain—a duopoly—in our supermarket industry squeezes the prices downwards. So it is not just the contractors who are contracting with the owner-drivers; it is the people above them the people at the top of the supply chain and that is where chain of responsibility comes in in relation to health and safety. 
Drivers have been saying to me that they are so cash-strapped that they often take risks by not repairing their trucks to save money. I have heard some awful stories about them running down their inside tyres to the rims—big trucks have two tyres—because they cannot afford to replace them. They have also been telling me that it is very common for truck drivers to fall asleep behind the wheel to drive without certificates of fitness and repair work to save money to fiddle logbooks and cover up illegal hours to rack up debt on credit cards and bank loans and to remortgage their homes to cover living expenses. As a result of that they suffer horrendous marriage and family stress. There is a lack of holidays because of course as contractors they have no rights and no bargaining power. They have told me that this all adds to the pressure of the job which includes night shifts and being on call 24 hours a day. 
These drivers are on our roads and this legislation does nothing to deal with the problem. It fiddles with the work-time rule—the logbook rule—and it fiddles with the chain of responsibility. When we look at the chain of responsibility legislation which Labour brought in we see that there have been very few prosecutions and the legislation has been in place for a couple of years. I was pleased that in July I think there was a big prosecution and conviction of an Auckland transport firm for allowing its drivers to breach work-time and logbook rules. It is good that there was a successful prosecution but there have been very few of them. The health and safety of these drivers and other road users should be the responsibility of the people who are requiring them to work these hours but that is not happening. So I have been looking very closely at the chain-of-responsibility provisions—even though the Minister did not mention it—in this bill to see whether it makes any difference. As I said there is one truck-related death a week and many injuries and it is still going on week after week. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: You’re going on a bit long. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: The other issue I want to talk about is the issue of the driving age I say to Mr Henare. I thought he might be interested in this. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: No I’m not actually. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Well we are supporting this bill’s referral to the select committee and we would be very interested to hear evidence about what difference if any raising the driving age to 16 will make. 
Michael Woodhouse 
: Why don’t you want evidence on the blood-alcohol level? 
DARIEN FENTON 
: We have got it from every other country and that is what the select committee process is for. Putting the driving age up is like plucking low-hanging fruit. It is one of those things that everybody says will fix the problem: let us pick on the young people and put up the driving age but without finding out whether it will make any difference. I am looking forward to hearing from some young people during the select committee process. As I said Labour is supporting this bill. We will listen to the arguments and we will make a decision about the driving age at the end of that. 
As Darren Hughes said we could have done something about the zero alcohol tolerance for under-20s some time ago. A bill called the Sale and Supply of Liquor and Liquor Enforcement Bill has been languishing at a select committee for 2 years. In March this year we offered the Government support to fast-track that legislation. We said we should do it. What happened? Absolutely nothing. Our support remains on that issue as does our offer to fast-track that legislation. However what we are doing with this bill is picking low-hanging fruit picking on young people. Let us make sure that we look at the real issues and I hope we will have genuine opportunity to do that at the select committee.