Mallard Trevor: Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) — Second Reading 
Mallard Trevor: Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) — Second Reading 
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Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
 I am slightly surprised that Mr Bennett did not speak with more enthusiasm about the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4). He put considerable energy into it. I compliment him on the way that he ran the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. It was an open select committee with a good process and a lot of access to officials. It is fair to say that apart from a few issues the committee came down in agreement. In fact if one did a very careful analysis one might find that Mr Henare and I had more in common with each other than I did with some of my colleagues and than he did with some of his colleagues. That happens when people listen to officials at committees and form their own opinions. 
I will not talk about the licensing area. Other members have crossed that area and I have not spent a lot of energy on it. I was on the select committee for only a few months and this discussion is really a side aspect of that. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: You even got a good letter. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I got a lovely letter from the committee and I say thank you very much. 
We should not be tolerant of people who drive when they have taken drugs. A lot of research shows that when people are affected by multiple drugs especially by alcohol and by another drug the effect is not additive but multiplicative. Far too many drivers have accidents in New Zealand especially injury-causing accidents having taken drugs. Many of those people have imbibed alcohol and have taken drugs on top of that. 
This bill is an effort to attack that problem. I agree with David Bennett that it is a first step but I think we know that this is the step we will take for about the next 5 years. Therefore we have to take every practical step that we can to make sure it is the best we can do at the current time. Frankly if I was the Minister of Transport I would have wanted to take a bit more time over the bill to look at the research; maybe I would have taken another 6 months to work it through. But the Government does not hold my view. There are a couple of areas where the Labour Party’s view differs from the report of the committee. We reserved our position on the report. 
I will say one thing to indicate an area of disappointment. As I said I think the committee worked in quite a non-partisan manner and we shared views. I had an undertaking from the committee that parliamentary counsel would be available to draft amendments. That offer was withdrawn. I am not sure whether it was withdrawn by the Attorney-General or by the Minister of Transport afterwards but I found that quite disappointing. No blame is attached to the select committee chair or the deputy chair for that. I understand the constitutional position; parliamentary counsel work for the Minister. But one would have thought that when amendments have a real possibility of getting a majority in Parliament even if the National Government does not support them it would be good to have those amendments drafted by parliamentary counsel. I hope to have drafts available later tonight so that parliamentary counsel can look at them work on them and if necessary get them into shape. 
The amendments are to give effect to two things. Firstly at the moment when people are injured and are hospitalised as a result of their injuries a blood sample is taken. If they fail the blood-alcohol rules then they are liable for a conviction for drink-driving. But under the current law and under this bill if it passes unamended if they are filled with heroin or methamphetamine and that was confirmed by a blood sample they are not liable for a conviction because they have not failed an impairment test. My view and the view of the Labour Party is that it is unacceptable for people to drive with class A drugs in their blood. We are not talking about urine tests because if something is in a person’s urine it can be there for a very long time and it might not be active. But as far as class A drugs are concerned it is our view that if they are found in someone’s system the full force of the law should come on to that person and he or she should be liable for a conviction. It is a relatively simple matter. I had a quiet discussion with the Minister and have undertaken to get that amendment to him so that he can consider it. I know that the officials do not like it because part of it relates to proving impairment as well as the fact that drugs were there. Clearly if people are laid up in a hospital bed we cannot do an impairment test on them but we already take their blood and my view is that it should be used for those purposes. 
The other area where I and the Labour Party have a difference with the committee’s recommendation is where someone fails a breath test but the police officer has reason to believe that the driver could be affected by drugs as well. Currently both the law and this bill state that basically if the driver fails the breath test then he or she is out of there as far as any liability in terms of drugs is concerned. In the way that the bill has been drafted the transport provisions effectively work only once rather than twice if someone is impaired by alcohol. 
To use an extreme ridiculous but accurate example if people have a pile of P on the seat beside them and they come to a police stop it would be better for them to swallow the P have a quick shot of whisky and fail the breath test in the knowledge that they will not be prosecuted under the Misuse of Drugs Act and that they cannot be tested under the transport legislation. Let us use a less ridiculous example. Someone who is driving while affected by methamphetamine—something that is increasingly common—is very very dangerous. Such a person will be better off to have a shot of alcohol and fail a breath test than face the full force of the law on drug-driving. From my perspective that is just wrong. If people drive with drugs and alcohol in their system they should be prosecuted for both. We should make sure that people are properly tested for both and are liable. The effect of the amendment is that not withstanding someone failing an initial breath test the police officer can still perform the impairment test and if someone fails that test then his or her blood can be subject to testing not only for alcohol but also for other drugs. 
I know that some of my friends in the Green Party are not particularly keen on this amendment and this direction but I say to them that for a blood test for cannabis to be positive cannabis has to be active in the blood. It is active in the bloodstream for the vast majority of the period for which one gets a positive result. These are not like urine tests where cannabis can stay in the urine for 6 8 or 10 weeks. Cannabis does not last for long in the bloodstream. 
These are serious amendments. They are designed to reduce the incidence of people driving under the influence of drugs. They are designed to save lives. As I said at the beginning of my speech the multiplicative effect of having drugs and alcohol in one’s system causes accidents. It is very very serious. People lose their lives and we are just beginning to understand how many lives are lost as a result of it. P is wrong and we should stop people from driving with it in their systems. Thank you.