Dalziel Lianne: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Dalziel Lianne: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:625;Page:20433] 
LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I want to take a call on the second reading of this bill to record a tribute to the chair of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee the Hon Mark Gosche. I have to say that he is one of the most competent chairs of a select committee whom I have ever had the pleasure to work with. His determination to go through this bill with a fine-tooth comb ensured that all interests were able to be balanced fairly—that is to meet the concerns of road safety; to deal with the issues of accountability through new chain of responsibility offences; to deal with professional drivers both self-employed and employed in terms of their hours of work and logs required to be kept; and to look also at the wider interests for those employed in the industry and at public confidence in the road transport and passenger transport industries. I want to place on the record how satisfying it is to work on a select committee under the leadership of someone who knows the issues and is not afraid to test advice. 
I guess this is a good point at which to acknowledge the officials who were set very challenging time frames but who always delivered to the select committee. We are very grateful to the officials for that. 
I also want to place on the record my congratulations to all elements of the industry both those representing the interests of the workforce and those representing the road transport industry and the passenger service industry. All of them were willing to work with us as a select committee both through the submissions process and also directly with officials as we progressed through this very important legislation. I think that this bill as introduced was a good bill; I now believe it is an excellent bill. 
But there is an amendment as Dr Wayne Mapp mentioned during the course of his speech. He did not listen to the Minister’s speech and completely overlooked the fact that the Minister said that officials were drafting an amendment as we speak. The committee said unanimously that we would welcome this amendment by way of a Supplementary Order Paper from the Minister—I repeat that we decided unanimously. 
The amendment relates to the prohibition on passenger service drivers having convictions for serious violent and sexual offences. In that regard I want to put on the record my congratulations to Deborah Coddington who came to the select committee to argue that particular position. It was readily adopted by the committee. I think that all members of the committee respect Deborah Coddington for the contribution she has made in that regard. 
We did ask for advice on prohibiting people from being passenger service drivers based on their having obtained very serious sexual or other violent convictions in the past. Once we had received that advice we were unanimous in our recommendation to alter the bill to include prior convictions. We made the point that this is not only about passenger safety—it is about public confidence in the passenger service industry. Everyone is entitled to know that he or she is not getting into a taxi whose driver is a murderer or a rapist. Nothing will change that. The Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper will not extend any appeal rights to murderers or rapists. 
However as a committee we felt that there should be an opportunity to allow those who have been convicted in the long distant past of less serious sex offences to have a tightly framed appeal right. We could not do that as a committee in the time available to us. I take it from the Minister’s comments in his speech that such a provision is being drafted and I welcome that. 
In conclusion I believe that this bill will make a real difference in terms of making the legislation more workable at an operational level and more effective in promoting road safety. I too commend the bill to the House.