Fenton Darien: Land Transport Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFenton Darien: Land Transport Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 03 December 2013. Volume:695;Page:15137. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DARIEN FENTON (Labour): I am pleased to take a call in the first reading of the Land Transport Amendment Bill. The bill lowers the adult legal alcohol limits from 400 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath to 250 micrograms and from 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood to 50 milligrams. I am really pleased that the Government has finally taken its lead from the Labour Party which has been agitating and pushing for this change since 2009 as we heard from our colleague Iain Lees-Galloway. It is a real shame actually that the Government did not take the chance in 2009. It did have other chances which I will talk about in a moment. In 2009 and in every year since then—4 years—people have been unnecessarily injured or killed because the Government did not have the courage to take this step at the time.In 2010 there was a bill that came to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee following on from the Cabinet consideration of this issue and that was the Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. That was the billthat the previous speaker David Bennett was talking about where we introduced zero tolerance for drivers under 20 introduced interlocks for people with alcohol convictions and so on. The Government also had the chance then to deal with this issue. It was a feature of the submissions on that bill which were very noticeable. When going back and having a look at the submissions we see it was one of the biggest issues. There were about six issues that were highlighted during the submissions on the bill but one of the biggest issues was from people submitting to the select committee that the Government should take the chance to deal with this issue of lowering the blood-alcohol content. Apart from submissions from a range of individuals and very respectable ones as well we had submissions from the Drug Foundation the Cycling Advocates Network Alcohol Healthwatch the Drink Driving Interventions Trust the National Addiction Centre and theHerald on Sunday. I remember that one very clearly.TheHerald on Sunday ran a campaign on this and it started I believe with Darren Hughes’ member’s bill which Iain Lees-Galloway eventually took over. It started with that. It supported that bill and ran a campaign to get New Zealanders to pledge to drink two drinks as a maximum which was a very successful campaign. That is when we first started to get the feedback from the public that this was something they supported. In fact there was overwhelming support from the public. As I say theHerald on Sunday did a very good job back in 2010 so we are talking 3 years ago. Of course the Alcohol Advisory Council also recommended lowering the blood-alcohol concentration. Rural Women New Zealand and the New Zealand Nurses Organisation talked about not only the safety issues but the health issues and also how important it was to try to take the opportunity to minimise harm injury and death at that time.What happened during that process? The Government despite many many strong submissions decided that it needed to have more information. Even though there had been many studies—and at that stage in 2010 there had been many studies; there were international studies and others—showing the benefits of lowering the adult blood-alcohol content to 0.05 the Government kicked for touch by saying there was a lack of New Zealand - specific research in the area. I do not know what spooked the Government. I do not know what spooked the Minister of Transport Steven Joyce as he was then and Cabinet when they first discussed this in 2009. I do not know what spooked them in 2010 but there was a cop-out. The Government had the opportunity to fix this issue then and not only that but we have had a member’s bill for many years now on this issue.During the Committee stage of the Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill Labour put up an amendment that would have reduced the blood-alcohol limit. So there was yet another chance for the Government to take up this issue and Labour tried very hard to help the Government save face on this. But guess what happened? In 2010 the Government voted against that amendment and it has consistently refused to support members’ bills from members on this side of the House that would have addressed this problem some time ago. Instead the Government went into this long-winded process of needing to gather evidence. Even going back before that as I said the Minister was acknowledging under Safer Journeys in 2009 that the public wanted change. Everybody knew then and they know now that reducing the blood-alcohol content makes a difference. I remember the Minister Steven Joyce saying at the time when he introduced restrictions on cellphone use that this was a no-brainer. I would have thought this was a no-brainer as well in 2009 in 2010 in 2011 and on and on. But what we have had instead is a no-brain response until Gerry Brownlee came along and suddenly realised that this was an issue that was going to get some traction by Labour because a member’s bill had been drawn.In fact I remember very clearly that the then Minister of Transport Steven Joyce tried it out for himself. He decided as he was the transport Minister to drink three-quarters of a bottle of wine and found he was still legally able to drive. He said that that was crazy and it is crazy. We all know that. If anyone watched a TV3 programme recently—Sue Moroney:Campbell Live.DARIEN FENTON: It wasCampbell Live. You would have seen a larger guy drink 12 bottles of beer which is a huge amount of alcohol. It is crazy. Steven Joyce said in 2010 that it was crazy but what happened in between time—Sue Moroney: It would be good if they told us. It would be good to know.DARIEN FENTON: It would be good to know that. He knew he was incompetent to drive and he said that the existing settings for legal alcohol limits for drivers were just ridiculous. So here we have had a crazy just ridiculous situation carry on for 4 years.The current blood-alcohol limit that we have for adult drivers was set in 1978. It is very clear that society changed its views on drunk-driving and it became less acceptable for people to get into a car when they had had a few drinks. Just in the same way many many years ago when we introduced seat belts that was a bit of an outrage at the time but it is completely acceptable now and people are moving on to other safety measures as well such as having restraints for older children in cars. Society does move on.But since 1978 and particularly since 2009 so much research has consistently demonstrated the benefits associated with lowering the blood-alcohol concentration limits in saving lives and preventing serious injuries. We also know that many other countries have already done this. In Australia in New South Wales they achieved an 8 percent reduction in fatal crashes and a 7 percent reduction in crashes causing serious injury. Queensland achieved an 18 percent reduction in fatal crashes and a 14 percent reduction in serious crashes and on it goes in Belgium and France. The statistics are there. New Zealand is no different. We knew that this was the case 4 years ago. Why did we need 3 years of research to tell us what everybody knows? This is sensible. It is a sensible measure. We have had the evidence. I am really happy that the Government has finally accepted what is obvious. I look forward very much as a member of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to debating this bill.