Ward Mike: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Ward Mike: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:626;Page:21377] 
MIKE WARD (Green) 
: 
 I endorse the comments of Deborah Coddington about the cooperative nature of the process. In fact it is interesting to hear the sort of barracking across the House. The select committee was much more peaceful than that. We support the Land Transport Amendment Bill. It contains a range of common-sense measures and is the outcome of numerous submissions and substantial consultation and deliberation. However the Greens felt obliged to include a minority report on the bill. It reported back over the decision of the committee to make passenger licence “fit and proper person” provisions retrospective without minimum sentence or appeal provisions. As originally written the bill made provision for the opportunity to exempt individuals sentenced to less than 2 years in prison and it was not proposed that the provisions be retrospective. 
 Because of several well-publicised incidents of individuals with serious convictions gaining a P endorsement on a licence and subsequently committing an offence against a passenger the committee decided the provisions should be retrospective. The committee considered the possibility of appeal but apart from myself and latterly Peter Brown it was not satisfied that the conditions for appeal as presented by the officials were sufficiently robust to protect passengers from the possibility of finding themselves in a taxicab with a rapist or murderer. So rather than run the risk of letting anyone through it was decided to remove the possibility by removing all. 
Deborah Coddington asked whether the time period of 10 years without conviction was long enough if for example the person’s last conviction was more than 10 years ago. She wondered about people who had been convicted of kidnapping or rape but we must remember that in addition to the 10-year requirement the director has to be convinced the person is unlikely to offend again. I would have thought that a person convicted of a serious sexual offence or kidnapping would be unlikely to pass the barrier. I agree with the intent of the provision and since the “fit and proper person” test may not on occasions have been applied robustly enough in the past there may be a case for re-examining drivers with previous serious convictions. However the prospect of depriving persons of their livelihood long after conviction and quite possibly for an offence at the minor end of the scale and removing the minimum sentence provisions for an offence for which the person has already been punished and which the community may well have known about and forgiven long-ago is in my opinion unfair and would likely result in a serious injustice without any improvement in passenger safety. The Greens are pleased that the Supplementary Order Paper reinstates the minimum sentences and provides for a right of appeal. 
I have a query about new section 29B(1) inserted by clause 13: “A person whose passenger endorsement is deemed to be expired and of no effect under section 29A(1A) may apply to the Director to have that passenger endorsement reinstated if—(a) the person has not been convicted of an offence specified in section …;”. Then follows the word “and” and I wonder whether it should be “or”. Because paragraph (b) states: “the person’s last conviction for a specified serious offence occurred more than 10 years before the commencement of this section; and”. It seems to me it should be “or”. Perhaps I have read it wrongly but people might want to think about that. 
When I drew attention to the matter originally one party put out a press release saying the Greens were soft on crime and wanted rapists and murderers to be driving taxis. Of course that is nonsense. People convicted of serious offences should not be driving taxis but this provision is for those at the lower end of offending. The Supplementary Order Paper provides that the director may reinstate a passenger endorsement if he or she is convinced that the applicant poses no risk to the community. 
The point was made that even schoolteachers and early childhood workers are not subject to such conditions. It is not difficult to imagine an incensed public dumping on Parliament at the prospect of losing their taxi-driver perhaps the only taxi-driver in a small rural community because of a 30-year-old scrap an only offence by that person committed in his or her youth. That is the kind of situation that no doubt some members in the House might have found themselves in had they not been lucky. I can think of times in the past when I have been beaten up by people and not inflicted any great injury on anybody but it is possible that I could have found myself in such a situation. 
I know that most members of the committee shared my concerns about the possibility of an injustice and were motivated by a concern for the safety of passengers. I hope they are satisfied that the amendments made will not endanger passengers. 
I wish to speak briefly about the provision for licensing small motorised personal transport devices—namely mopeds scooters skateboards recumbents etc. The rationale for exempting these vehicles is that if the motor is such that they pose no more threat than someone on a bicycle then what justification can there be for treating them differently? The bill has a little wriggle-room to provide the director with the opportunity to consider new and innovative devices that might pose a minimal risk for inclusion in the list of devices not requiring licensing. I think that is an interesting aspect and with the need for more innovative means of transport it opens up the opportunity for some of those more innovative means of transport. The Greens will be supporting the bill.