Woodhouse Michael: Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Woodhouse Michael: Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:672;Page:18438] 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 On very important legislation regarding matters of safety I am sure that every member of the House when considering that legislation wants to know that when it is passed things will be better—that the legislation will actually make a difference. The Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill is definitely one of those bills. We want to know that there will be a reduction in deaths and injuries on our roads when this bill becomes law. 
We have heard right through the readings of this bill that there are members who although they are generally supportive of the bill would be doing things differently if they were in Government. That is the nature of democracy. There has been some quite vigorous debate in previous readings and in the Committee stage challenging parts of the bill but I would have thought that by now the Opposition might be a little more generous in its support of the bill particularly given the Opposition’s total inertia in its 9 years in power. The member Ms Fenton may have spent about 30 seconds pretending to be generous and saying there were some good aspects of the bill but she then spent about 9½ minutes bagging the various things she thinks we should have done and did not do or things we did do but should not have done. That was generally the theme of a rather disingenuous contribution by a member on the other side. 
In fact Labour is now going to introduce a member’s bill to reduce the blood-alcohol concentration from 0.08 to 0.05. Well I trust that those members will simultaneously stop their silly nonsense on members’ days in terms of the sort of filibustering that has been going on like the disgraceful display— 
Hon Rick Barker 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This member some time recently raised a point of order to talk about the content of third reading speeches. He required another member to be focused narrowly on the third reading and he was very disappointed to hear the presiding officer say that he would entertain someone referring to matters not strictly within the content of the bill but referred to in debate. I have sat through quite a considerable amount of the debate on this bill but I have not heard any mention of the particular subject this member has raised. All I ask the member to do is to be consistent with his own requests. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I thank the member for those comments. The member is right and I am sure the speaker will come back to the contents of the third reading which relates to the bill as it has come back from the Committee of the whole House. The member has 8 minutes to try to do that. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. Consistent with the Speaker’s ruling I am playing exactly by the rules as laid down in that earlier decision. 
If there is such a danger to public safety by not reducing the blood-alcohol concentration level to 0.05 and if the sky is going to fall in because we do not reduce the level I do not actually understand why the Opposition would be satisfied with just an infringement notice regime as it has suggested. The distinction in penalties acknowledges that the risk is actually lower with the lower blood-alcohol concentration and that is what the 300 or so studies that the Opposition consistently quotes have actually showed: the more alcohol the greater the risk—no real rocket science there. But what those studies did not do—and research will be done following the bill being passed—was answer the following question: how many deaths or serious injuries are caused in New Zealand by drivers who have a blood-alcohol content of between 0.05 and 0.08 where that driver is at fault? None of the research has answered that question which is fundamental to a policy decision and when we gather that information it will enable us to make sensible evidence-based policy decisions. Maybe as Mr Lees-Galloway says the level will in the future go to 0.05 but at least it will do so on evidence not on lots of arm-waving from an Opposition that did not do anything when it had the opportunity to act. 
In the meantime lives will be saved when this bill is passed. Lives will be saved because the blood-alcohol concentration level for younger drivers will go to zero. Lives will be saved because recidivist drink-drivers will have to have a zero blood-alcohol content. Lives will be saved because of the use of alcohol interlocks. Lives will be saved when the driving age goes from 15 to 16 and when there is a harder pathway to full licensing. Safety will be improved by those and the many other matters contained in this bill. Rather than hang my head in shame as Professor Sellman might suggest I do I am holding my head up very high. This is excellent progress. I congratulate the Minister. I thank the officials and the select committee and I commend the bill.