Turia Tariana: Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) — First Reading 
Turia Tariana: Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) — First Reading 
[Volume:642;Page:12393] 
TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tena tatou katoa. This Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) is more than a matter of a technical amendment to the Land Transport Act 1998. There is a bigger picture here which we cannot ignore. It is the situation that motor vehicle traffic crashes are a major cause of mortality and morbidity for Maori and particularly young Maori; a situation that 23 percent of all drivers involved in fatal crashes are Maori; and a situation that 28 percent of all casualties involved in fatal crashes are Maori. There is literally a fatal attraction between motor vehicles and Maori particularly our young. 
Just over the last few years from 2004 to 2006 the figures tell us that driver alcohol and drugs was a factor in some 29 percent of fatal crashes and that includes both legal and illegal drugs. It was a factor in 19 percent of serious injury crashes and 12 percent of minor injury crashes. I hate data like this but the casualties from the crashes give us every reason to explore all avenues possible to prevent the ever-rising growth of such sobering statistics. 
This bill tries to address this by increasing the power of the police to deal with drug-impaired drivers and I take into account what my friend from the Greens has been saying about the powers that the police will have. The bill also seeks to address issues that have arisen around the use of personal information held on the register of motor vehicles. Both of these are serious yet very different matters and might have been addressed through introducing two separate bills. 
The whole area around motorcar injury and the impact of drug impairment is however clouded by uncertainties and dubious information. There has been very little research identifying the key factors associated with crashes involving Maori. This has inevitably restricted our capacity to develop effective strategies aimed at reducing Maori mortality and morbidity related to motor vehicle crashes. 
In an article published in the  
New Zealand Medical Journal 
 in 2004 it was suggested that one of the reasons for such a lack of information has been the difficulty in obtaining data by ethnicity. Police traffic crash records which are required for all crashes involving injury have not included ethnicity. 
The  
New Zealand Medical Journal 
 article was able to report that alongside being young and male a high proportion—70 percent—of Maori who were hospitalised or who died were from areas with very high levels of deprivation. The age factor is of particular concern. Two-thirds of Maori casualties were between 15 and 34 years with the group between 15 and 24 years being particularly overrepresented. This one group makes up 45 percent of the non-fatal casualties and 39 percent of the fatalities. That figure is absolutely criminal. Our rangatahi the hope of our future the leaders the designers the shapers the thinkers are those who lose their lives in their prime. 
Of course when we think of Maori who were hospitalised or who died as a result of motor crashes I am reminded that for every 100 drunk or drugged drivers killed in road crashes 56 of their passengers as well as 39 sober road users die with them. The loss of benefits that can flow from having competent healthy and skilled whanau members being able to grow and develop as fully functioning families can never be accounted for. 
As a worried mother and grandmother my cautionary advice to our young ones who have been venturing out late at night has been everything to do with their driving ability. I have always told my children to call me regardless of the time if there was not a safe driver available or if they had consumed alcohol. 
I look at this bill today as being one way to address what we know to be a contributing factor in the appalling car crash data though we agree that alcohol is the major cause of all accidents. Of course it is not a perfect science and we know that drugs other than alcohol can be difficult to identify and recognise as having a role in any accident. Research also suggests that the contribution of drugs other than alcohol to accidents may be under-represented in the police-reported crash system. With or without the data with or without the ethnicity records there is little doubt that any drug that has an effect on the central nervous system has the potential to impair driving. 
So we in the Maori Party support this legislation that ensures our roads will be safer. We support also the intention to make the penalties identical to the penalties for drink-driving and the intention that the police can apply the same powers to stop people from driving under the impairment of drugs provided there is proof. 
However there are some concerns which we will be seeking further advice on. We are concerned about the possibilities of the test being used as evidence in drug charges. The bill brings into the testing regime a compulsory impairment test that police officers can require people to undergo if they have good cause to suspect drug taking. But there is a real concern with a provision in the bill allowing blood specimens already taken to be re-analysed for research purposes. The aim of the exercise supposedly is to enable a better picture of drug-driving in New Zealand to be established but we believe there is sufficient concern around privacy confidentiality and basic human rights to warrant that a far more robust rationale be provided to justify such an intrusive approach. 
The other key intervention introduced in this bill is the establishment of a regime to protect personal information held on the register of motor vehicles although we are still permitting that same information to be used for purposes consistent with the purposes of registration. Currently the names and addresses of the current and any previous registered owners are able to be given to any person who quotes a vehicle registration number. Violent offenders can track down their partners direct marketing agents can access addresses for their own commercial gain and debt collectors can use the data for credit profiles. There have also been concerns about the use of vehicle names and addresses by persons who wish to trace owners to harass them or to steal their vehicles. 
Privacy and confidentiality concerns have therefore led to the amendment in this bill to protect personal information from release and that is all for the good of course. But the question will arise as to whether the overly rigorous requirements about having ownership details recorded are justified. The bill creates an infringement offence of failing to notify a change of ownership and if enacted would mean that the police would be able to order someone’s car off the road or impound the vehicle if ownership details are not on the register. 
I return to the research cited in the  
New Zealand Medical Journal 
 which identified that a disproportionately high number of Maori casualties were representative from areas with high levels of deprivation deciles 7 to 10. This finding is consistent with international research that suggests there is a strong association between the social and economic determinants of health in relation to injury in motor vehicle traffic crashes. With this being the case we raise the question as to whether having sufficient income to go forward towards the registration papers or the change of ownership papers has any relevance to the high mortality and morbidity rates of Maori attached to motorcar crashes. We will support this bill at this stage through its first reading but we do have many questions that we hope will be fully addressed at the select committee. Kia ora.