Lees-Galloway Iain: Land Transport Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: Land Transport Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 22 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19285. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North):It is superb to see the Land Transport Amendment Bill back in the Chamber. It does not seem like an awfully long time since we were debating the first reading so I want to congratulate the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee on an expedient approach to this piece of legislation. I see the chair of select committee David Bennett is in the Chamber this afternoon. I want to congratulate Mr Bennett and his team on the select committee on making sure that the passage of this legislation was not held up at the select committee.I was not a member of the select committee. I am speaking I guess because I actually had a bill that did something very similar to this legislation drawn from the ballot. It is nice to know that it is possible to have some influence over legislation from Opposition. There are not many opportunities in the New Zealand Parliament for Opposition members to get legislation through the House. It has happened to me twice now where I have had a bill drawn from the ballot and automatically—instantly—the Government suddenly took an interest in that issue and introduced legislation of its own.I have to say given how quickly this legislation has moved through its first reading through the select committee through its second reading and now into the Committee stage that it boggles my mind as to why it took so long to introduce the legislation in the first place because Labour actually had a member’s bill in the ballot for close to 2 years before the Government finally acted. It acted only when that bill came out of the ballot. That is despite the fact that the evidence both internationally and domestically was incredibly strong that reducing the drink-drive limit from 0.08 grams to 0.05 grams would have a marked impact on our road toll.Although the Government has finally relented to the overwhelming evidence and it has finally realised that actually the public is on side with this as well—I mean it is not often that you get such a perfect alignment of both the evidence and public opinion—I think the Government is underselling this. In fact Gerry Brownlee the Minister in charge of this bill basically said that he does not think it is going to make all that much difference. But he has not looked at the wider issues around the cultural impact of reducing the drink-drive limit. I think we are actually already seeing this. I have to say that from experience people are already much more aware of what is an appropriate amount of alcohol to consume before you get behind the wheel. I think a lot of people have probably adjusted downwards the amount of alcohol that they would consume before they get behind the wheel because of the debate that has gone on around this issue and because of television programmes like I think both Seven Sharp and Campbell Live which both ran little experiments. They were not the most scientific experiments I have ever seen but they demonstrated just how much alcohol someone could consume and still legally get behind the wheel at the current limit of 0.08 grams.So that debate in itself I think has already made our roads safer. But what of course everybody has been desperately waiting for is the legislation to actually pass. It amazes me given the pace with which the bill is now moving through the House that National took so long to see fit to actually get on with this and then it was only because the Opposition was actually in a position where it was going to get legislation of its own through because of course there was a majority. I had secured a majority of support for our member’s bill. It would have passed its first reading and it would have been able to progress through the House just as quickly as this one. The only difference is that it was an Opposition bill and the Government could not possibly have the Opposition get legislation through especially when it was so obvious that the Government had been sitting on its hands for so long.Having said all that of course we are very very pleased to see that this legislation is now making good progress. What the bill does of course is address the problem of legal drunken driving because that is what we have got right now. It is legal to be drunk—under any medical definition of intoxication—and still be behind the wheel. That is how high our alcohol limit is right now. So it removes that ability to be drunk behind the wheel legally and it brings us in line with the vast majority of Western nations around the world. This is not something new. We have actually dragged the chain on this one for far too long and all we are really doing is bringing ourselves as a nation in line with international best practice.There was some debate—and this is where Labour’s bill and the Government bill did differ—and that was about whether being between 0.05 and 0.08 grams should be a criminal offence. Under Labour’s bill we simply planned to reduce the limit and make it a criminal offence to be over 0.05 grams just as it is right now to be over 0.08 grams. The Government has introduced a system whereby being between the new limit and the old limit is essentially an infringement offence carrying a fee of $200 and 50 demerit points. I would be interested to hear from members who do sit on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee what the evidence was that they heard around that because I have not seen strong evidence one way or the other to be honest with you. I am open to hearing whether there is strong evidence one way or the other as to whether it would be better for it to be a criminal offence to be over 0.05 grams or whether it is better to have an infringement offence between 0.05 and 0.08.I can see what the Government is trying to achieve here. It is a method of ensuring that more people do not end up in the courts—although to be perfectly honest with you I think people are smart and they will adjust to the new limit. You will not see more people in the courts because they will understand what the new law is and will change their behaviour accordingly. But that is what the Government is trying to achieve. I guess given that the Government will have a majority for its view and the way it has drafted this legislation that this is the way it is going to go through and we will have to see whether it has a significant impact on drink-driving and whether it has a significant impact on the road toll or not.This is something that I think we ought to review after a period of time in order to see whether the original intention of having it as just one limit with a criminal offence of being over 0.05 grams would be more effective. There are different regimes around the world and that is why I would be interested actually to hear what the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee heard. Did it hear about the different regimes around the world the different approaches and how impactful each of those has been? I think that would be useful information for the Committee as we consider this legislation. But overall we do support this legislation because it is very very similar to what we were trying to achieve.The Government has also sought to deal with another very very tricky situation that I know a National Party member attempted to deal with through a member’s bill and that is the issue of what happens if someone refuses to give blood. I have to say that reading through the legislation as it has now been drafted it still looks like a very tricky and challenging issue. I think this legislation looks as messy as the member’s bill did. Again I would be interested to hear what the official advice was on how impactful the changes around that are going to be because there certainly are issues with the presumption of innocence. There are issues with the circumstances under which someone might not be able to give blood and it appears that there are some exemptions built into the legislation as it has come back from the select committee that could prove to be very difficult to enforce in real terms. As we start this Committee stage those are the issues that I would be interested in hearing from other members about interested in exploring but it is fair to say that in general Labour absolutely supports this legislation because it is something that should have been done years ago and if the Government had had its wits about it it would have tackled this issue a long time ago.