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:18064] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to take a call on the title. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Which one? 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Well there is a good question—which one; which title? I will give Tau Henare some suggestions about what it might be. I am happy to take a call on the title clause clause 1 of the Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. The title I believe is based on the Government’s Safer Journeys road safety strategy to guide improvements in road safety over the period 2010 to 2020. Gosh 2020 is a long time away but it will be here before we know it. The Safer Journeys strategy which is related to the title has as a long-term goal: “The vision a safe road system increasingly free of death and serious injury”. There is no problem with that—no problem with that. It is a motherhood and apple pie kind of vision. The Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill is supposed to implement that goal. 
Maybe the title should have been “Land Transport (Missed Opportunities) Amendment Bill” because the words “Road Safety” in the title are a little misleading. Although the bill goes some way towards addressing issues in relation to improving road safety between 2010 and 2020 it ignores of course the elephant in the room the missed opportunity that the title should reflect. It ignores the overwhelming evidence including that in the  
Safer Journeys  
document which the title of the bill is based on and which is what this bill is supposed to be about. It ignores the elephant in the room which is the lowering of the adult drink-drive blood-alcohol limit from 0.08 grams to 0.05. It could have been done in this legislation. If it had been maybe the title could have been “Land Transport (Road Safety: Labour is Here to Help) Amendment Bill”. If the Minister of Transport had accepted my amendment to Part 1 we could all now be going forward on this bill feeling pretty happy about it. The public would have been feeling pretty happy about it too because the missed opportunity to save 15 to 33 lives every year would have been taken up. 
Unfortunately the Minister has kicked the issue into touch. We have a 2-year research period for getting more evidence when the evidence is already there. More lives will be lost and more money will be wasted when we did not need to have that. Maybe the title of the bill could be “Land Transport (Road Safety: What a Waste of Money and Time) Bill”. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Cop out! 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Well there is another good suggestion for the title. It could be the “Land Transport (Road Safety: the Government Copped Out) Amendment Bill” because the Minister has copped out on this issue. It could be the “Land Transport (Road Safety but Only If We Feel Like It) Amendment Bill” or it could be the “Land Transport (Road Safety: Let’s Drink Three-quarters of a Bottle of Wine and We Can Still Drive) Amendment Bill” and we could just not worry about it. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: I know the member couldn’t. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: There are many possible titles. Seeing that the member Tau Henare is taking such an interest in the title and in my contribution on the title I ask him to stand up and respond to some of those titles and let me know what he thinks. I think there are much more creative titles than the ones I have suggested that would fit this bill and would be more suitable than the Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. 
The “Other Matters” part is really interesting too. I was thinking about it and wondering what fitted into the “Road Safety” bit and what fitted into the “Other Matters” bit. I am not really sure. All of this bill is about road safety so what are the “Other Matters”? Maybe they are all of the repeal revocations and consequential amendments that are in Part 2 and the schedules. Maybe those are the “Other Matters” bit. Some very obscure Acts that I have never heard of are being repealed or amended by Part 2 and the schedules.