Duynhoven Harry: Land Transport Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Duynhoven Harry: Land Transport Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Minister for Transport Safety) 
: 
 I move  
That the Land Transport Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be referred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee for its consideration and that the committee report back by 10 March 2006 and that the committee have the authority to meet outside normal sitting hours except during oral questions. 
In the recent changes to the Land Transport Act passed unanimously by the House last year passenger service drivers such as bus drivers and taxi-drivers with specified criminal convictions were prohibited from continuing to hold a passenger endorsement. Some of those drivers had been convicted decades ago of offences that most people would today consider do not merit the loss of their employment as in some cases they had had minimal penalty at the time. This bill will allow those drivers to apply to have their passenger endorsements reinstated. 
It also expands the criteria that the Director of Land Transport is required to consider when deciding whether to reinstate a passenger endorsement so that those criteria include the sentence imposed for the applicant’s last conviction for a specified serious offence; the general safety criteria set out in the Land Transport Act; any other matters that the director considers relevant including but not limited to submissions by any affected party; the length of time since the person’s last conviction for a specified serious offence; any other convictions the person has; and the likelihood that the person would if granted a passenger endorsement be a threat to public safety or security. This will allow drivers with convictions for offences at the minor end of the scale to re-enter the passenger service industry where this is not against the public interest. The bill will also allow the possibility of new applications for passenger endorsements from individuals with such convictions. 
The Land Transport Amendment Act of 2005 was passed without dissent in this House last June and it disqualified a small number of passenger endorsement holders with certain criminal convictions from holding a passenger endorsement. The Government has since become aware that some of these individuals have convictions that despite being in the category of offences punishable by 7 or more years’ imprisonment are for acts that occurred in many cases several years or even decades ago. Often the offence at that time attracted a small non-custodial penalty or a very short custodial sentence and in some drivers’ cases a conviction and discharge with no sentence at all. By today’s standards society might not consider some of those offences to be of a serious nature; for example consensual sex with a 15-year-old when the offender was 16. While there is a reinstatement avenue in the 2005 amendments to the Act it precludes those with convictions for sex offences or with any convictions for imprisonable offences in the past 10 years no matter what the circumstances of those convictions were. 
The law in this case has a simple objective which it achieves: to improve public safety by making sure that potentially dangerous people are not driving in a passenger service. However it has become clear that the mechanism although dealing with most cases adequately is too blunt. Of the 38000-plus P endorsement holders in the country some individuals are adversely affected in terms of their employment for no appreciable safety gain. What has become evident in recent weeks is that some individuals although they have a qualifying conviction did not have a severe sentence imposed for their offence and are unlikely to pose any risk to their passengers. Indeed some have been active in the industry for decades in some cases up to 40 years without any reoffending of any sort whatsoever. The law as it stands is stopping those people from working as a bus driver or a taxi-driver. The bill will recognise this and provide the opportunity for these people to apply for consideration to be reissued with their passenger endorsements. 
I should point out that the bill does not automatically reissue passenger endorsements to the affected individuals. The reinstatement option in the bill is tightly prescribed. The legislation does not create a general grandparenting right but requires that the director consider whether reinstating someone’s P endorsement is in the public interest taking into account various criteria including the sentence imposed to the offending how long ago it occurred any other offences committed and whether reinstating would constitute a threat to public safety. It explicitly does not allow for all of the P endorsement holders to re-enter. This way those with convictions for serious sexual or violent offences can be excluded. This will allow the travelling public to have greater confidence and security when using passenger services. The director cannot grant the reinstatement application unless completely satisfied that it is not contrary to the public interest and that the person will not pose a threat to public safety or security. 
In addition there will be other individuals with similar convictions to those I have described who may wish in the future to apply for a P endorsement but are now unable to do so under the Act. The bill will allow these people to ask that the director consider their cases also using the same criteria. However the presumption that they may not hold a passenger endorsement will remain until the director has examined their case. 
The intention of the 2005 amendments to improve the safety of the travelling public was correct. However there were consequences that affected the livelihoods of some drivers who most members of Parliament now see have been harshly treated in that the minor offences for which they often received only minimal penalties decades ago now prevent them from working. Many members of Parliament have asked how we can fix this situation and I would like to thank all the transport spokespeople from each party and the other members of Parliament who have indicated their support and their concern with their phone calls to me. I might add that there have been many phone calls over the Christmas period. They want to get this right. 
This bill fixes a specific problem with the land transport legislation. It is a straightforward amendment and I hope it will be able to be speedily dealt with by this House so that those affected can apply to the director and if appropriate return to work as soon as is possible. I invite the select committee to consider the above issues and consider any solutions. There may be other ways of achieving the same ends. I hope the select committee is able to quickly examine this issue and that agreement can be reached quickly on what measures are appropriate so that those who we believe have been harshly treated can return to their normal lives quickly. I commend this bill to the House.