Locke Keith: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Locke Keith: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:629;Page:1956] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I was interested when David Bennett criticised New Zealand First for shifting ground and voting for the last part and voting for the bill and for just now supporting it quite enthusiastically. He said that New Zealand First shifted ground to get votes. I thought it was a good tribute to the bill that the National member is admitting that the stand we have taken tonight is a popular stand out there in the community and is a vote winner. I am very pleased that he said that. 
The Green Party has been engaged with this issue to try to improve the legislation for some time including last year at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. I would disagree with the way that my friend Mark Gosche put in his comment earlier. He said that last year nobody voted for the exceptions. In fact I quoted my colleague Mike Ward who was on the select committee. Although it might not have been a question of voting on amendments or whatever it was quite clear from the section I read from the minority report in the report back on the bill which came from that select committee in the middle of last year that Mike Ward predicted exactly what would happen by not putting the exceptions in last year. 
Sure we did not put forward any amendments during the Committee stage and we did not vote in that respect but we made our position clear just as tonight—and Mr Gosche rightly indicated this tonight—there are some parties namely the Greens that would have liked to go a little bit further in this current legislation in terms of the power of the director to grant exceptions. But we have not put our wishes in the form of an amendment because we wanted to focus with others in the House on supporting Jim Anderton’s amendment. We made our point as parties often do without an amendment and without calling a vote on that. But the Green Party last year clearly signalled what would happen and the reason we did that is that we do very strongly support safety and justice going hand in hand. I think that is where the National Party does not really understand things. They are counter-posing one against the other. Either it is safety for the passengers or justice for some taxi drivers or bus drivers present or future. We say that the two things go hand in hand. The more that we have a society where we have justice for all and give everyone a fair go including bus and taxi drivers the more we have a society where people work together and where there is safety in the community. I agree with David Bennett that when we are talking about safety and justice we are also talking about the interests of the taxi industry and the bus industry. They want their drivers to be safe. That is very important. 
I think too that one of the problems with the National Party approach is that they were bending to the industry situation in the present and saying: “Look we might be able to keep the bus drivers and taxi drivers and their federations happy and keep drivers now in the industry happy by just dealing a bit with their concerns.” But if we are to be responsible as parliamentarians I think we have to look at our children our grandchildren our nieces and our nephews. If they in the future commit crimes in their youth or go a bit astray but later in life come right and want to do things such as drive a bus or taxi we have to look after them and not just look after a little section of the community right now. I think we have to give everyone those existing in the industry now and those who might want to enter it in the future the chance to put their case in the way this bill has come out before the Director of Land Transport and get the support of friends relations and workmates to prove that they have rehabilitated after the crime they committed in their earlier days. 
This comes back to a conceptual approach the Greens have. It was good to hear Hone Harawira mention restorative justice in his speech earlier. We support restorative justice not what National supports which is more retributive justice—just knocking people and not trying to restore them and rehabilitate them. We have to celebrate the fact when people are rehabilitated when they become complete again and become good citizens. That is the sort of society that the Greens uphold and are working towards. That includes people who commit all kinds of crimes including I say to Mr Mapp murder. 
Often the circumstances are very varied in the case of murder. Many people in this House will have known murderers and there are all sorts of circumstances. There are crimes of passion there is the whole question of voluntary euthanasia which Peter Brown has been dealing with and whether people in those circumstances have committed murder and indeed some people in those circumstances have been had up for committing murder. There are all sorts of categories of murder and those people are not essentially bad and evil for the rest of their days and they can come right. They can be rehabilitated. We should celebrate that and not say that people are bad bad forever which is behind the National Party approach to this bill. The outcome of this bill I think for the Greens is a big step forward over the situation that existed prior to tonight. We welcome that. It is interesting that United Future and New Zealand First have not gone entirely the way the Greens Labour the Progressives and the Maori Party have gone but they have supported some parts of what we have achieved tonight and that is very good. I think one thing this alignment tonight shows is a sort of natural alignment for progressive legislation such as this among Labour the Progressives the Greens and the Maori Party and I think we can celebrate that as we go forward.