Fenton Darien: Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Fenton Darien: Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:672;Page:18425] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I am very pleased to take a call in the third reading of the Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. As Labour members have said previously we support the majority of this bill. There is a lot that is good in it. We support a zero limit for repeat drunk drivers the alcohol interlocks for repeat offenders the tightening of work-time requirements for truckdrivers and the doubling of the minimum prison time for drink-driving drug-driving or reckless driving causing death. This bill builds on the work Labour did while in Government. 
Michael Woodhouse 
: Oh! 
DARIEN FENTON 
: We all want to see the road toll come down and we should acknowledge that although we have different opinions about how that should be done and where the emphasis should be we come to road safety issues—well I hope we do—in the Parliament with a genuine desire across all parties to see lives saved and injuries reduced. Having said that I resent the implication from the member opposite that Labour did nothing. We take this very seriously along with all parties—and they are wrong. They are absolutely and utterly wrong. 
One of the major differences we have on this bill is the Government’s decision to ignore the opportunity to reduce the blood-alcohol concentration limit from 0.08 grams to 0.05 grams. It is hard to understand why this Government has ignored the overwhelming will of the New Zealand public and of experts who want to see this matter resolved in this bill. We tried very hard to help the Government save face on this matter. During the Committee stage we put forward an amendment that would have reduced the blood-alcohol concentration limit. The Government voted against it. We have a member’s bill ready to go—and have had for some time—but the Government has shown no interest. It has instead chosen a very long-winded approach to sorting out the issues and that will take 2 years and the Government’s excuse is that it needs to gather evidence. I do not think that is good enough. 
It is funny to look back to when the Minister released the Government’s Safer Journeys strategy last March. He acknowledged that the New Zealand public wanted change. We have made progress on reducing drink-driving but there are still real issues to be resolved. This bill unfortunately will leave out one of the most important remedies for reducing accidents caused by drunk-drivers and it will be put on hold for another 2 years. 
Everybody knows that reducing the blood-alcohol concentration limit makes a difference. In the Minister’s own language when he introduced restrictions on cellphone use: “This is a no-brainer.” But we have a no-brain response to reducing the blood-alcohol concentration limit even though the Minister himself tried it out and found out how silly it is. He drank three-quarters of a bottle of wine and found he was still legally able to drive. 
Hon Steven Joyce 
: No I didn’t. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: The Minister did and he said it was crazy. We agree it is crazy but we have to ask what happened between the time he drank all that booze found he was incompetent to drive and said the legal alcohol limits are ridiculous and the time this bill was introduced. We can only speculate. I believe that the Minister is a very pragmatic and genuine Minister but this time I think he got rolled by his Cabinet. They were happy enough to enforce a zero blood-alcohol limit on young people under 20 but at the same time they condoned a high blood-alcohol limit for adults. That is wrong. Of course Labour supports the zero blood-alcohol limit for those under 20 but what sort of example do we set for them when on the one hand we say they cannot be trusted with any alcohol but on the other hand adults can continue to drink in a crazy way to use the Minister’s own words? What sort of example does that set for young drivers? I think they will be very annoyed that the Government is increasing the driver-licensing age from 15 to 16 while at the same time it is telling young people that adults know better when it comes to drinking and particularly when it comes to drink-driving. It is a double standard. It is crazy. 
The amount a driver can drink under our current regime is ridiculously high. The current blood-alcohol concentration limit allows people to become significantly impaired and still legally drive. It has been tested by people up and down the country. There have been many reports of that in the newspapers. The blood-alcohol concentration limit for adult drivers was set in 1978 a long time ago and since then New Zealand and international research has consistently demonstrated the benefits associated with lowering the blood-alcohol concentration levels to 0.05 grams—or lower—in saving lives and preventing serious crashes. 
The Minister of Transport referred in his speech to what the Australians are doing. Actually let us look at what they have been doing. New South Wales achieved an 8 percent reduction in fatal crashes and a 7 percent reduction in serious-injury crashes—this is by lowering the blood-alcohol concentration limit—and Queensland achieved an 18 percent reduction in fatal crashes and a 14 percent reduction in serious crashes. Belgium achieved a 10 percent reduction in all alcohol-related fatalities and France achieved a 30 percent reduction in alcohol-related fatal crashes. So why is New Zealand different? Why do we have to wait 2 years? Why do we need 2 more years’ research to prove what we already know? This has annoyed the public. They will be annoyed when they find out that the Government has missed an opportunity to deal with this. The polls have repeatedly shown that they are overwhelmingly in favour of this measure and according to Alcohol Healthwatch not reducing the limit is “gutless” and a missed opportunity to save at least 14 lives a year. I quote its director Rebecca Williams. She said: “We simply do not need more research to tell us that this will effectively save lives and reduce the number of alcohol-related crashes on our roads. Nearly 300 studies showed driving skills were significantly impaired at the current 80mg limit and public support for lowering the limit was growing. This is a regrettable failure that leaves our Government with blood on its hands.” 
I am sure most National members know in their hearts that this is a poor decision. Although as I said there is much in the bill that is good this is a poor decision. It has missed the opportunity to save lives. I know that Jackie Blue for example will be gutted by her party’s decision. Actually I know that the Minister does not really have his heart in it either. I am sorry but the Government is playing irresponsibly with the lives of Kiwi road users by not taking this important— 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: You don’t need to apologise for saying that. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: —well I am very polite—step now and instead delaying it for another 2 years. 
Then there is the other part of the bill that Labour has had difficulty with and that is the reduction in the driver-licensing age. Sure it looks good on paper and sounds good. It looks good in the media. “Let’s have a go at the young. After all they are not a particularly politically vocal group and drivers under the age of 18 cannot vote.” We thought long and hard about this but the difficulty is that the Government has grabbed a low-hanging fruit approach to this. “Let’s just put up the driver-licensing age.” The problem is it will impact on the rural communities on young workers who have to go to work where there is no public transport and where their families rely on that additional work to boost the family income particularly at this time when the cost of living is so appallingly difficult for people. 
We have difficulties with this measure because there is no evidence that raising the age will reduce the accident rate for young drivers. There is no evidence. No one is clear whether it is the age the lack of experience or the lack of supervised driver training that is causing the problems. We think this is a big step to take given the impact it will have on the communities I have mentioned. We know that the greatest risk for young drivers is during their first 6 months of driving independently. I think what this provision will do is simply shift the age at which we have problems. We believe that young people learning to drive need to have proper education and proper supervision and we support the extension in this bill from 6 to 12 months for the learner-licence period before a driver can obtain a restricted licence. 
As I said there are two problems with this bill. We have outlined them. We tried to assist the Government in the Committee stage. We are particularly regretful that the bill does not go far enough in dealing with the adult blood-alcohol concentration level. It is a missed opportunity. It is a sad time for New Zealanders and road users.