Hughes Gareth: Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Hughes Gareth: Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:672;Page:18431] 
GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson. Nga mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. It is great to take a call on the third reading of the Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. I acknowledge the members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee the officials and everyone who came to the select committee and submitted. I acknowledge Darren Hughes who introduced a Supplementary Order Paper and who was involved in the submission process. The Green Party also acknowledges the importance of road safety; every death that occurs on our roads is a tragedy. Many of us in this Chamber have been impacted on by deaths or serious accidents on our roads and every single one of those is a tragedy. We need to do everything we can to make sure we have fewer and fewer tragedies every year. 
The Green Party will be supporting this bill and we support the intent to make our roads safer. We believe genuinely that this bill will make our roads safer; however we lament the missed opportunities. There are possibly some once-in-a-decade or once-in-a-generation opportunities that we could have taken in this bill while the stars were aligned to reduce the blood-alcohol content. We are also missing another opportunity because while we are talking about  
Safer Journeys 
 the New Zealand Transport Agency’s discussion document and while we are passing this legislation today to make our roads safer what is happening with road transport planning and road transport funding in New Zealand is doing the opposite. In fact what we are doing is becoming more dependent on our cars more dependent on heavy trucks and more dependent on oil which will see more of us and more of our whanau impacted on by deaths on our roads. 
The most effective thing we could be doing to reduce the road toll in New Zealand is reducing the number of cars on our roads by giving people real options to bike safely to work to take a train that is reliable or to take a bus that is affordable and convenient. Those are the things we need to talk about; those are the opportunities we have missed. 
When we look at the context we see that this Government—and it is a pity that Steven Joyce has left the Chamber because he has just released his draft Government policy statement—and Steven Joyce have literally raided the transport pantry to fund his pet seven roads of national significance. In fact with his latest Government policy statement he has actually obtained the crumbs to fund the four new roads of national significance. I do not want to speak badly of the Taupo to Cambridge Road or the people who frequent that road but I do not— 
Sue Moroney 
: What is the cost-benefit ratio? 
GARETH HUGHES 
: That is a good question. The fact is that more people drive on big-city arterial roads or on Kopu Bridge than they do on that road. There is a distinct smell of hawk when it comes to that road and to some of the other four new roads of national significance. The flipside is that as Steven Joyce has raided the pantry to fund his pet roads there is just no more money for those alternatives which we need in 2011 to deal with the climate crisis the oil crisis the inequality crisis and the lack of real affordable options that many Kiwi families have in order to get to work. 
In the latest Government policy statement the budget for public transport infrastructure declines seriously over the next 10 years. It is necessary that we start work now on Auckland’s inner-city central business district rail loop and Wellington City’s light rail system. We need the Government to step up to the plate. At the moment for every dollar it is spending on walking cycling buses and trains it is pouring $7 on to its pet seven political “roads of National Government significance”. That is mad for the climate when our emissions have increased 70 percent since 1990; it is mad when we consider that oil is now at its most expensive ever in our country’s history at $2.21 a litre; it is mad when we consider we are in the midst of an obesity crisis and more people die from air pollution from road transport than they do from road accidents on our roads; and it is mad when road safety is what we are trying to achieve. 
The Green Party supports the bill but we want it to go further. We will be voting for it but we lament those opportunities. We agree the driving age for 15-year-olds should be increased to 16. I think the member Mr Lees-Galloway might like to look at some of the evidence. I have seen the evidence and I believe that it is compelling. I did not want to raise or support raising the driving age to 16. As soon as I turned 15 I went to get my driver’s licence. As soon as I could I got a car just like so many Kiwi kids do. The first thing they want to do is get around driving their cars. The fact is that many Kiwi 15-year-olds just do not have realistic alternatives to get to work or to school. 
We support alcohol interlocks we support the zero blood-alcohol level for repeat drink-drivers and we support the increased sanctions for repeat drink-driving offences. We even support changing the procedures in relation to how we deal with blood specimens clarifying the roles of parking wardens and a whole host of the smaller less controversial measures in the bill. But the three parts of the bill we seriously disagree with are the youth blood-alcohol level the treatment of drink-drivers and again which Labour has rightly pointed out the need—the urgent need—to reduce the blood-alcohol level for over-20-year-olds to 0.05 grams. 
Firstly looking at the youth issue we have effectively dropped the blood-alcohol level to zero—0.03 grams. We believe that this legislation is scapegoating our young people. The real issue is that 92 percent of heavy drinking in this country is by over-20-year-olds. It is politically expedient to focus on just the under-20-year-olds when many of them do not in fact vote for the governing party for rightful reasons. It is convenient to target them and to ignore the big important issue which is adult drink-driving and the broader issue that we have a drinking problem in this country. Treatment is missing from the bill. Perhaps it did not have to be in this legislation but I think the Government needs to step up to the plate with more support for alcohol treatment. We know that 80 percent of repeat drink-drivers in New Zealand have a drinking problem yet only 5 percent of those 30000 people convicted annually for drink-driving offences receive any sort of alcohol treatment—only 5 percent. We need to be stepping that up. Clearly as a nation we have a drinking problem. It is $4 billion in social costs. 
At the same time that this legislation is going through we have the Alcohol Reform Bill which comes from the Law Commission report to try to tackle the serious issue of our cultural problem with drinking in New Zealand. Unfortunately this bill adopts the same position as the Alcohol Reform Bill which is that it is politically expedient to target young people and not look at the bigger more fundamental structural reasons for why we have a drinking problem in New Zealand. Under the Alcohol Reform Bill the focus is on the split regime or whether we raise the age of purchasing alcohol from 18 and 19 years old to 20. We are ignoring the pervasive $70 million - plus alcohol advertising industry. We are ignoring the pervasive sponsorship of events university orientations sports clubs— 
Michael Woodhouse 
: You’re getting out of scope Gareth. 
GARETH HUGHES 
: I believe that it is in scope I say to Mr Woodhouse. It ignores the accessibility— 
Michael Woodhouse 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. There are successive Speakers’ rulings on scope in third reading debates. I suggest Mr Hughes’ debate on the merits of the alcohol purchase age and advertising are well outside the scope. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I say that this is the third reading. Often it is a reading that encompasses everything that has been said in the debate and the member is doing just that. 
GARETH HUGHES 
: I do not want to waffle because in fact I am running late. I am accepting on the steps of Parliament a petition from Gisborne to save their local rail line so I will push on. 
We have a drinking problem in this country and the most effective thing we could have done was— 
Michael Woodhouse 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Without wishing to challenge your ruling I wonder whether you would explain Speakers’ ruling 117/4(1) which states that the member cannot discuss “Any matter not included in the clauses of the bill;”. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member can actually do that. The reality is that this is a third reading debate. A third reading debate often refers to things that have gone on in the Committee stage of the House. I did not hear that debate but it may well be that the member did. But if that member had just waited the honourable member Gareth Hughes had changed his stance and was moving back towards what he started with. 
GARETH HUGHES 
: That is correct; I was pushing on. Obviously alcohol is the key part of this bill and that is what I was referring to. Today we should be reducing the blood-alcohol level to 0.05 grams. We know the New Zealand Transport Agency’s estimates: we could be saving between 15 and 33 lives; we could be saving 686 people in this country from serious injuries. The evidence is there. More than 300 international reports show we should be doing that. Public opinion maybe for the first time in decades is onside. I acknowledge that Labour members discussed the issue but did not cross the bridge to reduce the blood-alcohol level when they were in Government. The evidence and public opinion are onside. We are not talking about going out on a limb; we are talking about moving into the international norm. Twenty-three other OECD nations have reduced their blood-alcohol level to 0.05 grams. It would be only going in line with World Health Organization guidelines. 
I will finish with what I found to be the most compelling submission in the select committee process. It was from Professor Doug Sellman and I will read a quote from him: “We have legalised drunk-driving in New Zealand [with our current blood-alcohol level.] … Decisions like this make me feel ashamed to be a New Zealander. … Let every death and every injury that occurs in fellow citizens over the next two years and the suffering of their families be felt by those Members of Parliament who are actively conspiring against the safety health and well-being of ordinary New Zealanders for the sake of other agendas by supporting ‘more research’ rather than ‘action now’ on legal drunk driving; and shame on those Members of Parliament who sit back and do nothing while this scandalous decision is passed into law.” We are missing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to tackle those serious issues. Although the Green Party supports the bill and its intent we lament the missed opportunity. Kia ora.