Chadwick Steve: Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Chadwick Steve: Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:671;Page:18065] 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK (Labour) 
: 
 I will also take the opportunity—having been denied a lengthy debate on Part 1 and on Part 2 after rightly challenging the Chair—to accept the call of the Chair. It means we will have a little rave on the title of this Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. I would call it the “Land Transport (Partial Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill” because I believe— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: There’s got to be a law against this sort of thing. 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK 
: —if Tau Henare could just listen to the evidence—that it is a very sad day when we get an opportunity to have such a massive bill before the Committee that we have wasted the opportunity to do the right thing. 
We have wasted the opportunity to do the right thing here and there will be up to 66 lives lost while the Minister garners evidence when he knows from the ministerial adviser to the Prime Minister that that evidence is already here. We are now facing a very similar type of debate to one that was running in the UK just recently which shows entirely that this Government will not go near anything at all that touches what its members call that nerve of social legislation. 
Members opposite who have a good conscience have said to me that they are not allowed to vote on any social legislation. The Prime Minister has told them that in the first term of Government they are not to introduce any social legislation after Labour’s bold initiatives in the 9 years we were in Government. I say to Tau Henare that it was Labour that brought in the Law Commission report on alcohol which is the guiding document for all other legislation that impacts on alcohol and here is the golden opportunity in this “Land Transport (Partial Road Safety but Not Far Enough and Other Matters) Amendment Bill”. 
We know that the Prime Minister wrote to the Ministry of Transport officials and this is the reply he received. He was told the public would react badly to a cut in the drink-driving limit even though research and polls show that most drivers are keen to see the limit reduced. How sad! This was one crack at land transport legislation that could have been universally accepted by all parties in this Chamber but for the issue of the driver-licensing age and the blood-alcohol limit. I think it is very sad. It mimics what goes on globally. This debate has just happened in the United Kingdom and there Ministers of the Crown were advised by doctors and physicians about their lost opportunity too for reducing alcohol-related deaths and morbidity on the roads. 
Michael Woodhouse is yawning as if the loss of lives and morbidity on the roads does not matter. To us over here it does matter. We know the evidence is already there about reducing the blood-alcohol limit from 0.08 grams to 0.05 grams but the Minister will sit on his hands prevaricate and ignore evidence-based research that has been put by the Chief Science Adviser to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has copped out of giving leadership to this country and leadership to the children of this country by setting an example to young people and saying it is not good enough to go out there and drink and drive. Here was the opportunity. 
The Minister in the chair the Minister of Transport could have shown leadership. I think he wanted to but he got bowled by his own leader the Prime Minister who rode roughshod over him and went directly to the Ministry of Transport advisers. They gave him the advice which we have here that he would get a bad public reaction to this so the Prime Minister decided that we would not go there even though 70 percent of those polled tell the Prime Minister and the Minister of Transport that this is what should be done. 
I also acknowledge the legacy of the Hon Darren Hughes in this debate. Darren fought very hard in this debate in the House and he took on the Minister of Transport. I enjoyed the repartee between the two of them. Darren came near to convincing the Minister of Transport that this was a good idea. I think a legacy to Darren Hughes would be to acknowledge that we could have today called this bill the Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Bill but we cannot. We are here in the title debate making a half-hearted attempt at road safety.