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:18069] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 As always it is a privilege and a pleasure to follow the Hon Tau Henare. What arrogance he just demonstrated in talking about clauses 1 2 and 3 of the Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. Before the dinner break I asked him why he is always here in the Chamber yelling out when he has so little influence on his Government. His Government is so out of touch. If it was in touch it would be amending the legislation to decrease the legal blood-alcohol concentration limit from 0.08 grams per 100 millilitres to 0.05 grams per 100 millilitres of blood. We have raged on that issue in the debate but I still do not understand why this bill does not amend the principal Act to ensure the legal blood-alcohol limit falls. We all know and we have all heard the arguments all night— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: The country is lucky you are not the Minister of Transport. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: The country is lucky that Tau Henare is not the Minister of anything. Thank goodness for that. May we never see that day—and in fact I think we never will. 
I express my disappointment that the blood-alcohol concentration limit has been kicked into touch by the Minister of Transport. He did not have the fortitude to do something about it when he had the opportunity so the principal Act will be amended without the blood-alcohol concentration limit being amended. 
I did not have the opportunity to speak earlier on so the other issue I want to address in talking about the principal Act being amended— 
Michael Woodhouse 
: In the title? 
DARIEN FENTON 
: —in clause 3 “Principal Act amended”—is the provision in clause 12 that raises the minimum driver-licensing age. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: I thought you were going to raise the minimum wage. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: That is a good idea actually. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: What’s that got to do with the bill? 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Well you brought it up— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
DARIEN FENTON 
: I apologise Mr Chair but I am being sorely provoked from across the Chamber. 
In this bill which amends the principal Act clause 12 raises the minimum driver-licensing age. As we have said in debate tonight and earlier we do not support this clause. We have some difficulties with it. I make it really clear that Labour is extremely sympathetic to some of the comments the Minister made earlier on. No one in this country including the Labour Opposition wants to see young people dying on our roads unnecessarily. No one wants to see that. But our difficulty with this provision which amends the principal Act is that there is not the evidence that the issue is around age. The issue of age versus education versus time on the roads and so on has not been explored. We know from the evidence of course that young drivers actually become more dangerous when they have had some experience not when they start driving. We have a problem with the fact that the overall effect of these changes is that young drivers will have to be 17 before they can obtain a restricted licence. That causes enormous problems in a struggling economy. In a struggling economy not everyone will stay at school. Kids have to stay at school till they are 16 but many of them want to go and study or go out and do jobs. They may even work part-time. The country is in such a parlous state that many kids now have to go out and work part-time just to help their families. 
David Shearer 
: If they can get a job. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: If there are any jobs out there of course. Then of course they will receive the minimum wage which had a miserable 25c-an-hour increase from 1 April. How are those families supposed to cope with the fact that their 15 or 16-year-old will not be able to go to work after school or do any study? They will not be able to take up study. It is fine to talk about study and doing things for our young people to bring them through—I hear Paula Bennett going on about that all the time—but what happens if they cannot actually get there? 
The real difficulty is that in Auckland where I live there are no alternative means for those kids to get from home to work. We have a real issue about public transport in Auckland. Even though Labour did an enormous amount around it we now have a Government that just wants to build roads everywhere and spend a fortune on roads of national significance—roads of national significance that mean nothing to 15 and 16-year-olds who are trying to get from home to work to earn a little bit extra to help their family to support themselves. The reality is that the cost of living is having a dire impact on families. Because wages are not going up—the minimum wage is pathetic—children 15 and 16-year-olds are now contributing to the family’s income. How on earth are they supposed to get to work? 
The other thing I thought was that in amending the principal Act the Government would have been more sympathetic to its rural supporters. Federated Farmers and Rural Women New Zealand are good organisations that made very straightforward submissions to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee about their concerns about how young people in our rural areas were supposed to get around from one place to another. They might be going to school going to college or going to work. This Government has shown it does not care. It has shown it is out of touch with 15 and 16-year-old young people not only in our urban communities but also in rural communities. This Government does not listen; it is not listening. It is completely out of touch. There were discussions during the select committee process about alternatives and I know that exemptions for young people who need to go to work or who are in rural communities were explored but the Government said nothing about that alternative. It is not interested in it. 
I go back to what I started with. Labour is extremely concerned along with everybody else about the crash statistics for our 15 to 19-year-olds. We are very concerned about that. As I said no one wants to see our young people dying unnecessarily on the roads. We have a high teenage crash rate but let us be clear about it: the problem is not when they start driving it is not when they sign up at 15 to get their learner licence; it is later on. I think the ACT member talked about the figure of 100 hours. That is what the statistics and the information tell us. I am really disturbed that we are punishing our young people. It looks like the Government is tackling a problem but it is doing it without evidence—it is doing it without thinking about whether the problem is age driver education or experience. The Government has called for 2 years of research on lowering the blood-alcohol concentration limit—it is prepared to do that. It says it will not make a decision even though the evidence is already overwhelming and even though the public want it. Given that I would have thought with this other issue the Government would take a consistent approach: find the evidence and find out whether age driver experience or driver education makes a difference. 
In this legislation amending the principal Act the Labour Opposition is extremely disappointed with two things. One is the amendment to the minimum driver-licensing age which will have an impact on our young people. The other is the cop-out that this Government has demonstrated by refusing to take up the evidence and the call of the public—the New Zealand public—to reduce the blood-alcohol concentration limit from 0.08 grams to 0.05 grams. As we have said we really support a lot of the amendments in the bill; we think they are good steps forward. I add that those steps build on the work Labour did when it was in Government despite what the National Government has said. I do not know whether it has taken any notice but there was a whole programme called See You There—Safe As around improving road safety. In fact road safety has been improving steadily for a long time. It improved under Labour. With this Government we see no goals for improving it; it has a vague vision about reducing accidents and injuries. Of course everybody will say that is a good thing. “Road Safety” is in the title of the bill but there is no real commitment to looking at some of the things that actually matter like the impact of changing the driver-licensing age and the blood-alcohol concentration limit.