Lees-Galloway IainIAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): One of the defining differences between the Labour Party and the National Party is that the Labour Party believes in having a capable Government and capable public services that can actually deliver positive outcomes for the New Zealand public whereas the National Party believes in dismantling the Government in dismantling and minimising public services and in cutting public services.One of the ways in which that has manifested itself is by the cuts to our police force—in particular the cuts to our police force's ability to enforce road rules and to actually be out there and keeping people safe on our roads. So whereas on this side we believe in having a police force that is capable of enforcing the law members on that side have cut funding and they have dismantled the police force and the result is the road toll is going up. That is what happens when you have an ideological fixation on cutting public services. Things happen like the road toll goes up.Good policing and good enforcement is not the only thing that has brought down the road toll over the last few decades but it has been an important component in bringing down the road toll. So what happens when the National Government fixates on cutting the public sector? People die. That is the result. That is certainly the result in this case with its fixation on cutting police resources. For decades we had a steady drop in the road toll but for the last 3 years against all the trends the road toll has steadily been going up and what the Government is trying to do through this legislation is fix a gap that will not be fixed by changing the law. It will be fixed only if the Government actually acknowledges its mistake and starts to fund our police force properly.This bill makes a number of other changes as well which are all fine and we will support them and we look forward to having the conversation at the select committee. But if the Government is not prepared to actually resource its public sector to enforce these law changes then we are all wasting our time. So I mean of course ride sharing is here. It has had a huge impact on the taxi industry it has had a positive impact on a lot of consumers and it certainly has brought prices down for a lot of consumers and so it is appropriate that as technology has changed the landscape we respond to that in the legislation. But it is absolutely pointless—absolutely pointless—if the Government is not prepared to enforce the law and in this space of private vehicle transport it is already failing to enforce the law. The Government is failing to enforce the laws we have right now. We have one particular ride-sharing company that proudly flouts the law. It came to the select committee and told us how proud it was about flouting the law and the Government's response has been utterly limp.Many of these changes are extremely positive; let us go through some of the changes. Drivers will no longer need to have an area knowledge certificate. Well all the drivers have got GPS so that kind of makes sense. I must say a couple of taxi drivers have said well actually one of the things about having your local knowledge is you know when the GPS is going to take you through all the traffic lights and with your own local knowledge you actually know that there is a much quicker route than just to follow the GPS blindly. But you know in the 21st century with that kind of technology that change makes sense. Not requiring a driver to pass the full licence every 5 years—I think that is perfectly reasonable as long as we ensure that those drivers still have a P endorsement. This bill says yes they will still have to have a P endorsement. The problem is there are ride-sharing drivers driving passengers around New Zealand today without a P endorsement. They are breaking the law and this Government does not do anything about it.So the Government says: We're going to keep the P endorsement in the law. That is a really important component of keeping strong law to protect passengers and to protect other drivers on the road and we're going to keep it in this law but we're not really going to bother enforcing it because that costs money." National is ideologically fixated on having a smaller Public Service so it is not really going to enforce it and it is going to be even harder to enforce it—because you can tell when a taxi is driving down the road. It has got a sign on top of it and it has got signs on the side of it. You cannot tell when a private vehicle that is being used for ride sharing is driving around. You cannot tell just by looking at it so enforcement becomes a whole lot harder in fact.So the Government actually needs to resource the enforcement agencies to tackle that much more difficult problem of enforcement—of actually figuring out who is operating a ride-sharing vehicle and whether or not they are adhering to this law that we are debating in its first reading right now. But the Government has no plans to ensure that the resources are there to enforce this law. The Government does not care that we have already got people breaking the law putting people at risk. It does not care. It just does not care. That is why the road toll is going up. Just a lack of care is what it comes down to ultimately.So you know we can debate this. We can feel really good—we can feel really good—that we are passing new legislation but as long as we have got a Government that is that disinterested in public safety then passing all these laws makes absolutely no changes at all in reality and the road toll will continue to go up. We can bring in alcohol interlocks—that is great. We support that. We think that is a fantastic initiative. We can strengthen the framework for managing public transport fare evasion—fine no problem—and create more effective deterrents to reduce the incidence of fleeing drivers.Great let us do all that stuff—wonderful. Who is going to enforce it? Where are the resources? How is this Government going to make sure that our overstretched police force actually has the resources to deal with these things? Where is the backing of our front-line public servants? Where is it? It certainly is not coming from this Government which cut funding put more pressure on that workforce put greater demands on it and passed legislation like this that says "There's more enforcement that you are going to have to do. You are going to have to do more with less." and then those members are surprised when bad things happen. They are surprised when it goes wrong. They sell themselves and the public this story that you can endlessly cut funding to the public sector and nothing will change. Nothing will go wrong. You can squeeze people harder and harder and harder and put more expectations on them and nothing is going to go wrong. And then when the road toll goes up—"Oh that is a surprise. We need to change the law. We need to change the law and bring it into the 21st century."This is the problem with this Government. This is the fundamental problem with this Government: its ideological fixation on a variety of things. It is why it cannot deal with the housing crisis—it just cannot bring itself to intervene in the housing market. It is just not in its DNA. It is just not what the National Party does. Likewise properly funding our public services like the police is just not in the National Party's DNA. It cannot do it. So when we have issues like this we have to actually ask ourselves who is capable of responding to them. Time and time again the National Government members demonstrate that they are just not capable of it. They often know what the answer is but they cannot bring themselves to implement that answer because it is just not in their DNA.I support this legislation. I suspect that there are aspects of it that are not perfect yet and that is why we are going go to the select committee. I look forward to hearing from all the submitters. I particularly look forward to the people who are operating in this space: the traditional taxi companies and the ride-sharing companies. I really want to make sure that we do everything we can to get this law right. But all our work—and I say this of the National Party MPs as well who are here just like us. They are legislators. This is the way in which we get to have an influence. This is the way in which we try to create a better society. All our work will be for nothing if the Government is not actually prepared to put the resources in to implement this legislation to enforce this legislation.So I support this bill. Let us take it to select committee. But if we really want to bring the road toll down if we really want to see real change for the better in New Zealand then there is only one answer and that answer is change the Government."