Brown Peter: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Brown Peter: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
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PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I would like to start by complimenting the member who has just resumed his seat. I thought he read that beautifully. This bill was a dog’s breakfast from whoa to go principally because the two old tired parties would not listen during the last term of Parliament. Wayne Mapp shakes his head but he has been privately over here and acknowledged that I made more than one appeal to be a little bit more reasonable. He is now nodding in agreement. Labour was exactly the same and it has now fallen on the shoulders of the Hon Harry Duynhoven to sort out the mess. Let me just remind the House that when the bill came back to the House there was no provision for appeal for anybody in relation to any one of those serious offences. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Hang on! It wasn’t my bill. 
PETER BROWN 
: The Minister wants to disown it from the word go. As the Hon Mark Gosche has already stated the appeal process originally came into the House as a Supplementary Order Paper during the Committee stage. It was out of kilter. I have it in front of me. It prohibits—we are talking retrospectively now and forward-thinking—a person convicted of murder. Such a person shall not get a passenger endorsement. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: No one’s suggesting that. 
PETER BROWN 
: The Minister is correct. It also goes on to state that a person convicted of “a sexual crime under Part 7 of the Crimes Act 1961 punishable by 7 or more years’ imprisonment”—and there is a little bit more detail there—shall not get a passenger endorsement. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: No one’s suggesting that. 
PETER BROWN 
: Well we will come to that in a minute. It then goes on to state that people will not get a passenger endorsement if they have committed “an offence against any of the following sections of the Crimes Act 1961:”. Let me just list the offences: attempt to murder counselling or attempting to procure murder conspiracy to murder accessory after the fact to murder wounding with intent intent to cause grievous bodily harm by injury aggravated wounding or injury discharging a firearm or doing a dangerous act with intent acid throwing intent to cause grievous bodily harm by poison infecting with disease abduction of women or girls kidnapping abduction of child under 16 robbery aggravated robbery assault with intent to rob—those sorts of things can be labelled very very serious crimes indeed. 
But the appeal process allowed for those people listed in paragraph (c) in clause 4 the people I have listed to appeal to the director for a passenger licence. It caught trapped totally people guilty of murder as it should and people guilty of sexual crime. In that sexual crime category it captured the young lovers 18 and 16 years old. As we know people kicked up a fuss. There is such a case in Dunedin and there is another in Tauranga. There are probably another two such cases in Tauranga that I am aware of and there are probably others in other parts of this country. As we know they were the drivers to send the bill back to the select committee to have another look at it. Meanwhile all those people who are guilty of those offences I have listed can appeal to the director to get the P endorsement with the exception of murderers. 
We have looked at the 234 cases—if my memory serves me right—of the people who were captured under the list of sexual acts. Most of them were young and they got involved sexually. Whether or not we agree with that is neither here nor there. That is what happened and they have now been prohibited from getting a passenger endorsement. This bill corrects that anomaly and allows them to appeal to the director. That is only right and proper. With all due respect I cannot see how a young guy who got involved with a young girl during their teenage years is necessarily now a threat to passenger safety. That just does not stack up with me at all. They had red blood flowing through their veins they were given the opportunity or they created the opportunity and they got sexually active whilst one of them at least was under the age of 16. 
These incidents occurred in the 1960s and 1970s some a bit later and it is absolutely ridiculous to say that they are a threat or a danger to the public when driving a taxi a bus or what have you. This bill corrects that situation. The Minister wants to take it a little bit further because at the select committee it was said that people found guilty of that crime or convicted of that crime and who received a fine or a term in borstal—a juvenile punishment in other words—should have the right to appeal. The Minister in a Supplementary Order Paper wants to extend that right to people guilty of that crime convicted of that crime who had a modest period of imprisonment. 
New Zealand First is prepared to support the Minister in that because we know there were some young people who would have gone to borstal if there had been room there but instead went to prison for a month or so. New Zealand First believes that they should have the right of appeal also. 
As we move forward we want to be consistent. If we believe— 
David Bennett 
: You couldn’t be consistent with anyone last year. 
PETER BROWN 
: If the member would just sit over there and hold his peace for a moment I will continue. If we believe that young people who feel the passion of blood in their veins and get sexually active at 15 or thereabouts—perhaps 17 or 18—are likely to be a threat to passenger safety why do we not believe that of the people who are already driving taxis? That is inconsistent and absolutely unfair. They can do almost anything but they cannot drive a taxi. We will allow an appeal to be heard for a potential murderer because that is what the last bill did—and they have put their appeals in—but we will not allow an appeal to be heard of a 15 or 16-year-old who wants to buy a taxi and who is not driving at the moment. Tell me that that makes sense. 
David Bennett 
: Why did you vote for it last year? 
PETER BROWN 
: I tell Mr Bennett that we did not vote for that last year. We voted for the Supplementary Order Paper but we told the House and the select committee that there would be loopholes that people would fall through. If Mr Bennett gets his Supplementary Order Paper through—and he has not got a snowball’s chance in hell I might add—he will be condemning those youngsters to a life where they cannot drive a taxi because they got involved with one another. 
I tell the member that in this modern day and age whether we like it or not we are much more casual about young people having relationships than we were in the 1960s. It is a lot more casual. Whether we like it or not that is the case. There are something like 500-plus people on the domestic purposes benefit who obviously had sexual relations when they were very young—some of them under 16. In 2004 something like 3840-plus abortions were undergone by females under the age of 19 and some of those girls would be under 16. Eighty-five of them were in the 11 to 14 age group. People are not getting caught for underage sex or policed for it now but the one or two or the few who are Wayne Mapp wants to say that they can never drive a taxi. 
I ask Wayne Mapp to think it through sensibly. I know many members in his caucus who think that what he is doing with the Supplementary Order Paper is unfair. [ 
Interruption 
] Harry Duynhoven has just told me that some people in the member’s caucus have made representations to him to take a fairer attitude. 
New Zealand First will support the bill at all its stages and it will be supporting the Hon Harry Duynhoven’s Supplementary Order Paper. I also say to the honourable member David Bennett that I do not retract one word of the sentence that he stated I said. Indeed I am proud to have said it.