Nash StuartSTUART NASH (Labour—Napier): As someone who I assume is going to contest a by-election in a couple of months I would have thought that member would have taken more time than simply 2½ minutes to practise speaking; but anyway that is the way it is.I stand to support the Land Transport Amendment Bill. There are six points that I would like to make. What I would like to say is that I think this bill has some fantastic initiatives. I am really interested to see what the experts round the nation have to say when they present in front of the select committee but on the face of it there are some really good things here. What I want to do is work through them and then make a final comment.The first thing is these interlockers. I actually think this is a fantastic idea. In fact I would almost like to see these compulsory in every car and certainly in cars driven by people with P plates and learner licences. It is a great idea. Drink-driving is unacceptable in this day and age but there is still too much of it. Let us accept the proposition that when people have been drinking their judgment is impaired. It is not just their judgment on driving down the road in a straight line; it is whether they should drive or not. What an interlocker does is it is a device that you blow into and if there is any alcohol detected then it locks the car. You cannot drive it. Fantastic! But let us see whether it does work. The small measures in the bill will I suppose provide a trial and if it works then perhaps we can have an evidence-based approach on how we roll this out across the country.The second thing is fleeing from the police. We are going to increase the penalties for this. Again it is a great idea. There are three reasons that have been given in the bill for why this is in here. The first one is that it will deter drivers. I have my doubts about that to be fair. I think all the evidence shows that when people are committing a crime they do not think about the consequences because they always think they are going to get away with it. The second thing is it will reduce the number. Again I have my doubts because like I mentioned just 2 seconds ago I think when people are committing a crime the last thing that goes through their heads is a rational decision around the odds of being caught versus not being caught. But the third objective which I completely agree with is to send a very clear message that fleeing from the police is totally unacceptable and is a serious crime. There is a debate every time this happens and a driver crashes. Luckily in the last two that I can remember no innocent bystanders were killed but the risk every time someone flees a police car is that not only will they kill themselves which is enough of a tragedy but they will kill an innocent driver or an innocent pedestrian. The thing is that it also puts the lives of the police at risk.As the Opposition spokesperson on the police I am asked every time there is a media comment on this whether I agree there should be chases or not. What I do believe is that the police use their discretion and I think they do that very well and I back the police on this. But what I also believe is that this is a serious offence it must be taken seriously and the message we must send is that it is totally unacceptable to flee the police. The bottom line is you are going to get caught anyway; you are probably going to get done. If you flee you have obviously done something seriously wrong. Just stop and take the consequences for goodness' sake.The third thing is fare evasion. I actually did not know until I read the bill that when a passenger is asked to prove they have bought a ticket they do not have to. There is no obligation to do that and no obligation to give their name and address as well. They can be absolutely belligerent. If the conductor or someone comes up and says Sir can I have a look at your ticket to prove you have purchased one?" they do not have to show it and they do not have to give their name and address. This seems a little weird. So I think this is good because it means that you do have to provide proof of purchase. If you cannot provide proof of purchase then you are required to give your name and address. It just makes sense really. It is a pragmatic approach.The fourth point is the update to the heavy vehicle registration. I listened very carefully to my colleague Sue Moroney's thoughtful words on this. I must admit I will need to hear what the experts say before I am sold on this initiative. The thing that people do not realise is that the wear and tear on the roads from these heavy vehicles is significant. It is not a linear curve. You have got a small car here versus a big truck; it is exponential. In fact the wear and tear on our roads from these large trucks is significant. We need to understand the cost benefit around this and whether it is going to increase productivity or not and the cost to our roading infrastructure. It will be interesting to hear the submissions on this point.Taxis—the fifth point. Well it ensures competition; competition is a good thing we cannot argue with that. It engages with technology and updates the regulatory system to the 21st century. I think what it does do is it takes into account the disruptive business models we are beginning to see in this industry and that is only fair in my view. But again it will be interesting to hear what the submitters have to say because I suspect this is going to be hotly contested and I suspect there will be some very thoughtful submissions presented to the select committee on the taxi regulation.The last point I would like to make—and it is something I will spend a little bit more time on than the rest—is police resourcing because by and large what we are going to ask the police to do is ensure that they are the ones who enforce the vast majority of the provisions in this bill. The irony is that it would have been about 2 months ago that the police Minister herself said that about 111 police are going to be taken off the road. I must admit the irony of "111" police taken off the roads was not lost on a lot of people but the thing that we know is that having officers on the road acts as a deterrent itself. We all know that if we are driving along at 103 kilometres an hour and we see a police officer we will slow down to 100 kilometres an hour—I know that no one in this House drives over 103 kilometres an hour but you know what I mean. It acts as a very serious deterrent; if we take the police officers off the road there is no deterrent at all.I am really concerned that what we are doing is loading up the police with yet more work. The interesting thing is that in the latest workplace survey 55 percent of police said that they had unacceptable levels of workplace stress and 60 percent of police officers actually said they do not believe they are delivering on the promises they make to the public. But the interesting thing about this survey is that over 80 percent of police said that they enjoyed their work and 80 percent of police said that they had a commitment to the New Zealand police force. So what we have got here is a group of highly professional men and women who want to do what is right—they know what is right; they want to have the tools to get out there and make it happen but they are just under-resourced. They are highly engaged highly committed but with a hell of a lot of stress and not meeting promises.As mentioned this bill does some really good things but there is no way we are going to be able to enforce this if we continue to cut policing resources. The interesting thing is that in the 2016 to 2020 police strategic plan signed off by the commissioner and signed off by the Minister on 27 May this year it actually highlights the fact that there was a slight drop in police numbers from 2014 to 2015 and then from 2016 to 2020 there will be no additional police. No additional police and yet we are dealing with a force that says itself that it is stressed—that says itself that it cannot meet the promises that it makes to the public. Police want to—they work hard they are committed to their communities and they are committed to the people of New Zealand—but there are not the resources. Luckily the Minister of Police and the Prime Minister himself have come out and said: "Look maybe we got it wrong in that strategic plan. We are now requiring police to investigate every single burglary instead of the 70 percent investigated in the past. As a consequence of that we need more police on the street we need more police in our communities and we need more police on the front line."The thing I would say is that it is all very well to come into this House and say to the media "Yes we need more police." but it is a different matter to actually deliver on that promise. Before this bill passes through this House what we need I believe is a firm commitment of how many police and when they are going to come online because there is no point in passing this law through the House if there are not the men and women out there to enforce it.Just to sum up I think there are some great initiatives here I think there are some pragmatic provisions in this bill and I am looking forward to hearing what the select committee and the submitters say but—and that is a really big "but"—I think we are wasting our time putting these measures in place if there are not the men and women on the front line to enforce them. We need more police in our community and we need a firm commitment from the Minister of Police and the Prime Minister around when these police are going to arrive how many and where they are going to be deployed. Thank you very much.Bill read a first time. Bill referred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee."