McKee NicoleNICOLE McKEE (ACT): Mālō e lelei Madam Speaker.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Kia orana.NICOLE McKEE: I stand to speak on behalf of the ACT Party for the Land Transport (Road Safety) Amendment Bill and have put on notice that the ACT Party will not be supporting this bill going forward. We did support it at first reading and we had reservations which we pointed out.I think it's important at this point that I do acknowledge all of the officials that came into the Justice Committee because it was a very complicated bill and they had to go backwards and forwards many times with our many questions and I do want to acknowledge the hard work that they did there. As well as across the board with the Justice Committee—we had robust discussions there.But we've still come to the conclusion that we cannot support this bill. ACT are not satisfied with the bill and we do firmly believe that this Labour Government is heading further and further in the wrong direction on how to address law and order issues. We also recognise that the point-to-point cameras is merely revenue gathering for the Government trying to rebuild their fiscal hole from the taxpayers' pockets—the taxpayer who already has to repay this Government's wasteful spending. What else do you do when your tax take is down by billions of dollars? It's put more onto the poor old taxpayer.The consultation period for this bill actually only ran from 19 May to 4 June. It was 16 days in total—we couldn't even take three weeks this had to be rushed through so quickly—and there were 33 submissions to the bill of which only five were regarded as being generally supportive" of the bill. The majority did not support this bill and they raised many concerns with us. Those concerns included that the bill wouldn't achieve making our roads safer; that the fleeing driver proposals are disproportionately severe; there was impounding vehicles for six months; and the use of forfeiture will also have an unnecessary impact on the finance industry the towage and the storage operators. There were concerns raised about e-servicing regimes about the use of average speed to issue infringements along with the accuracy and approval of the automated infringement systems.So if we start to work through some of these bill's details the objective of the bill is to reduce unsafe driver behaviour. It has claimed that it will do this by lengthening the 28-day impoundments of vehicles to six months for drivers that fail to stop but also for the drivers that fail to remain stopped—the ones that that take off—and also to create new power for the impoundment of the vehicle if a driver the owner or the registered owner fails to provide information and prevent a serious threat to road safety.So the question—and I guess we could have asked this but I didn't think of it at the time—was actually how many times does a fleeing driver commit that offence twice in the same vehicle? Because if they do the vehicle itself can now be forfeited regardless of whether or not they own it. They would increase disqualification from one to two years and we don't have a problem with that one. But it also allows electronic service of notices and automated issue of certain infringement notices and this is through the enabling of the point-to-point revenue cameras.The implementation of this bill was meant to be the day after Royal assent but it's now six weeks. This is to enable the new empowerment regime to take place and create a new financial assurance regime for the six-month impoundments. Waka Kotahi are going to be liable for all of the costs. What are the ultimate costs of this scheme going to be? We still don't know. Who pays Waka Kotahi? Well the taxpayer is paying Waka Kotahi so the taxpayer ultimately is going to be the one liable for all of the costs.We had to amend the bill so that police are responsible for telling Waka Kotahi when a car has been impounded. They hadn't even thought that far through in the drafting of this bill. Then we had the financial services industry who came in and said "Well if a car is on finance who's going to tell us that the car has been impounded?" After the toing and froing with officials it was actually deemed that it's going to be up to the person whose car has been impounded to tell the financial services that it has been—that is the registered owner.So the finance companies have to change their processes to accommodate unknowns and Waka Kotahi have to set up a system of payments and debt collections. Owners and registered persons of vehicles will potentially be losing their vehicles for six months and having to pay the towage and storage fees. Yet what of the fleeing driver? What of the fleeing driver? There are so many questions that came out through the select committee. My colleague across the way there Anahila Kanongata'a-Sui—Marja Lubeck: That's all. She dropped the second bit.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): That's all now.NICOLE McKEE: Thank you. Thank you. She actually brought up a really good point and it was: what if members of Pacific Islanders' families go home—the parents go home sometimes for a month two months three months—and their vehicle is used and they don't know that? They come back to find that their vehicle's been impounded for three months. They did not have the opportunity to be able to address who was actually driving the vehicle.The hardship that could be imposed on some of our families for events that had nothing to do with them—for events where they had no control—and yet they would be the ones that would be subjected to having to pay for these fees. Some of these fees start at a minimum of $2500 and that's not including all of the towage and the ultimate storage fees. That's just your starting basis.There are so many questions here. Police can release a vehicle if they're not prosecuting but then again who pays? So if a vehicle's been in impoundment for three months who's actually going to pay that? Is it the taxpayer or is it the owner of the vehicle? What are those expected costs to Waka Kotahi; to the taxpayer?Also where are all these vehicles going to go? Where are they going to be stored? I remember during the protest here we had an issue where the towage companies could not place all of the cars that were blocking the road into a facility. So if we're going to start impounding cars for six months at a time where is it that they're actually going to go?This bill was so rushed that even Waka Kotahi's newly added financial responsibility—no one had actually thought about how would Waka Kotahi know a vehicle had been impounded? How would they know whether or not they had to actually be able to get in touch with the finance company with the registered owner? They don't. So we had to put a variation within the bill to allow the distribution and sharing of information. This is basic stuff that should have been in there in the first place.But if you're a finance company and there is no sharing of information then it's tough luck. The only way that the finance company can actually get the vehicle back out is if they themselves become the new registered owner of the vehicle. And who's liable for the payment of all these fees? The registered owner. So when we look at all of the implementation that needs to be made around this bill it becomes quite destructive and it's not achieving the objectives of the bill which is to make our roads safer and to try and stop the deaths.Now I understand 10 percent of road deaths are from speeding. So when we have the pointtopoint cameras we have to wonder whether or not we are financially making ourselves liable for 10 percent when in fact we could spend that money looking at how we can improve services across the whole of New Zealand on all of our roads to decrease the deaths.We now have towage storage Waka Kotahi and finance companies all having to make changes to the way that they operate. But what about the fleeing driver? What about the person who's caused all of the harm in the first place? This bill will confiscate it will impound and it will possibly forfeit private property of a person who may not have necessarily committed a crime putting unreasonable financial pressure on already stressed out community environments struggling under a cost of living burden. And what of the fleeing driver?We can't support this bill where the onus is placed on one for the actions of another and to do so financially and with confiscation is unjust and it's wrong. Then there's the automated infringement notices as well. Email addresses having to be provided when the Heartland Tour showed me we can't even get Wi-Fi everywhere. So many issues. We can't support.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Kia orana. Before I call the next member just to let you know that you may have to give your speech in two parts given the time."