Ferris TākutaTĀKUTA FERRIS (Te Pāti Māori —Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe e te Pīka. As I stand to speak to the Land Transport (Drug Driving) Amendment Bill I'm reminded again of the Government's lack of understanding about what Māori and Aotearoa really need. What Māori need and what Aotearoa needs is more solutions not more punishments. We need to stop coming up with ideas that target Māori and in this case you're targeting rangatahi Māori. If you don't understand those stats man your dudes need to do more research. Young Māori boys already have a hell of a problem with simple traffic infringements being their launching pad into the justice system and because of a range of other socio-economic—oh yeah shrug your shoulders; that's all good. Away you go. You're the head of it—Hon Paul Goldsmith: So drug-driving is not a problem?TĀKUTA FERRIS: Not necessarily drug-driving or drink-driving; small infringements—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): If you could direct your kōrero to the Chair.TĀKUTA FERRIS: Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Kei te pai. Tēnā tātou. This bill establishes a new random roadside oral fluid testing regime. Whilst it might detect drugs in someone's system there is no way of knowing that the person had just taken those drugs and was under the influence of those drugs while they were driving the car. So how can you—Sam Uffindell: Have you not read it mate?TĀKUTA FERRIS: Oh no no no. If a young boy from Remuera if young Cameron Arbuckle had been pulled up somewhere and had—Hon Member: Who's Cameron Arbuckle?TĀKUTA FERRIS: —you know one of those young guys—and had cannabis in his blood and it was detected by a saliva test well that might have occurred six weeks ago.Sam Uffindell: There's a concentration threshold.TĀKUTA FERRIS: That might have occurred weeks or days ago—not necessarily. You can't prove it's at the time that the kid is driving. So support—Hon Member: This is defamation!TĀKUTA FERRIS: Away you go—away you go. I know you've done no looking at this but that's all right. Māori are overrepresented in all of the justice statistics yet you fellas want to ignore it. Māori are overrepresented in traffic offence convictions.Sam Uffindell: We're protecting people on the roads.TĀKUTA FERRIS: Hey—simple: overrepresented not necessarily because they are guilty of those offences. The 2019 Human Rights Commission cited that when it comes to low-level conventions Māori are overrepresented. Possession of cannabis: 54 percent Māori 22 percent non-Māori. Disorderly behaviour: 43 percent Māori 24 percent non-Māori. Things like theft: 35 percent Māori 23 percent non-Māori.Hon Member: It's personal responsibility.TĀKUTA FERRIS: If you look into it you'll discover it's more than just personal responsibility. But these are facets of a justice system that has been racist for a long time and this side of the House seems to care nothing about the numbers the history the explanation the research that has gone into it and they're happy to roll out a bill that will overly convict young Māori in particular. So I am standing here speaking up for young Māori.You know communities around the country—marae kura—they all put in huge effort to try to get the young boys in their kura and in their communities a licence before they leave school so that they don't fall victim to the justice system by way of a simple traffic infringement. But here we go; we're going to wind this up. We're going to add drugs to it—drugs they might have done six weeks ago three weeks ago four days ago not necessarily an inordinate amount of drugs but it can be in their system when they're pulled up. We know 100 percent that this will adversely affect rangatahi Māori and you fellas are happy with it. You're absolutely happy with it.It took about 10 minutes to discover all the numbers—10 minutes. Ten minutes fellas—you could have put 10 minutes' effort in and discovered what the numbers are for young Māori people and the nature in which they're treated. Dr Rawiri was in here only last week speaking about the justice pipeline and how it delivers Māori from first point of contact with the justice system through to prison at alarming rates and here we go again; we're going to have another crack. Despite being 20 percent of the population Māori are more than 51 percent of the people charged when it comes to traffic and low-level offences.So unfortunately this is the plight that we have at this point with this Government and we will be here fervently standing up for our people encouraging that half of the House to do a bit of research encouraging that half of the House to consider their role as the Treaty partner in Aotearoa. You guys are the Treaty partner in Aotearoa. We should have at least some ABC elementary level understanding of what these things mean when you just roll out a law and what the impact on Māori will be and the impact on Māori youth of this law will be catastrophic. So ka pai koutou.Tom Rutherford: Mr Speaker?TĀKUTA FERRIS: Yeah you can stand up now.