Hague Kevin: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHague Kevin: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 03 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19234. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KEVIN HAGUE (Green):Unfortunately I did not get the chance to sit in on very much of the select committee proceedings but I have followed the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee report with some interest. I have got to express some disappointment that the select committee has not in fact ended up taking on board the issues that I raised at the first reading and I do want to come back and speak about those again. The Green Party will be supporting the Land Transport Amendment Bill. We believe that it is a step forward; it is just a shame that it was not a larger step forward. There is no dispute that driving while intoxicated is dangerous. It poses risks to the health the safety and the life of the person who is intoxicated and also to others who share no culpability in that person’s behaviour or choices.That is why we have criminal sanctions for drink-driving. Those sanctions reflect the gravity of transgressing our law in that area. There has been as Carol Beaumont referred to it a mountain of evidence about the harm caused by drink-driving both while above the existing legal limit and while in the zone between 0.05 grams and 0.08 grams which is the particular area that we are looking at. As others have referred to it has been evident in fact for a very long time that harm was being caused by drivers who had blood-alcohol levels within that range.It is I think a source of embarrassment to this House that it has taken so long to actually lower the levels that are permitted by New Zealand law particularly when so many countries around the world have moved before us. This is not I would have thought an area in which New Zealand ought to be proud to be a follower whether that is a fast follower or as in this case an extremely slow follower. We should be embarrassed and ashamed by the slowness of our response in this area.It would have been sensible given the fact that drivers with blood-alcohol levels above 0.05 grams but below 0.08 grams are still posing a risk of serious harm to themselves and to others to respond to the situation by simply lowering the threshold at which criminal penalties take effect. Why not just lower the threshold to 0.05 grams? That is what the Green Party would have supported. Instead the Government has decided not only to lower the threshold but also to considerably lower the penalties and the gravity with which such offending is seen. We believe that that is a serious mistake. No doubt the Government’s argument is that the risk of harm from lower levels of intoxication is lower—so lower intoxication leads to a lower risk of harm—and therefore there ought to be lower penalties and I guess that there is an argument that could be made along those lines.However the fact is that for some people those lower levels of intoxication will in fact still lead to serious harm and serious impairment that creates bigger risk. Therefore it seems to me to be unacceptable that our law should treat that kind of offending with a lower level of seriousness. A person has infringed our law about what is an acceptable level of intoxication and we know that that level of intoxication will for some people create serious risk and will lead to deaths. It seems to me that that should be the trigger for criminal offending and for the penalties that go with that. It seems unarguable that that should be the case yet that is not what this bill does. Certainly if we were to do what I propose—if we were to simply lower the threshold for the criminal offending provisions—then it would still be within the discretion of judges to apply lower penalties and not to enter convictions if that seems to be appropriate in the circumstances of the offence and the offender yet this Government is choosing not to adopt that approach.The reason for our dismay that this weaker response has been taken is that surely the point of having penalties against drink-driving in the first place is in part for society to wreak some kind of response against those who transgress against the law. That is one of the reasons. But the other and probably more important reason is to try to change community behaviour. What this Government has chosen to do with its weaker response to intoxication below the level of 0.08 grams is send a weaker signal. It is choosing to take the smallest effect it possibly can on community norms. What we know about changing the kind of behaviour that causes risk of harm to others is that we will best do that not by targeting those with the most extreme behaviour but by trying to change the norm of the whole of society. What we want to do surely is achieve a situation where the community norm in New Zealand is that it is unacceptable to have more than a few drinks and then hop behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. It is unacceptable to do that.That is what Scandinavian countries for example have succeeded in doing. In those countries it would be extremely rare for anyone to do that. Their rates of injury and death associated with drink-driving are much lower than ours. We could have taken a giant stride towards those much lower rates by sending a strong signal saying that this lower level at 0.05 grams is still unacceptable in our society that it is still posing a risk of harm and that that kind of behaviour is not acceptable. Instead what we have done is we have chosen to have a lower penalty and that lower penalty and the infringement nature of the offence that is created is to say that this is actually not very serious. That will have probably some effect but little effect on those community norms that I spoke of.This could have been a much better bill. It could have been a bill that made a big amount of progress towards changing community norms and reducing harm associated with drink-driving. It is unfortunate that the Government has instead chosen to send a weak signal that will have little or no effect on those community norms.