Moroney SueSUE MORONEY (Labour): Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker for the opportunity to speak on the third reading of the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 2). With a bill with a name like that we would really hope that this was the bill that was going to actually do something to reduce congestion to maybe reduce the road toll or to make sure that our transport system works much more effectively and efficiently than what it does. Maybe there would be hope that this would be a bill that would actually make better use of our rail system for example up and down the country and in the regions.But sadly no—it does not do any of those things. It is a bit of tinkering around the edges from a Government that has spent $9 billion of taxpayer funding on transport only to make carbon emissions higher to make congestion worse and to have the road toll go up for 4 years in a row now. I do not know about you but I think that takes a high level of ideological incompetency to spend $9 billion and get worse outcomes from our transport system. But that is exactly what this Government has achieved—if you could call that an achievement. But good news—soon there will be a Labour-led Government that will actually truly bring about amendment to our land transport system that will make a real difference and will get New Zealand moving and get it moving in the right direction. This bill does have a lot of features that yes we do support. So we are voting for it because it does not do terribly much harm but it does not do much that is great either. However we have some real reservations about this bill. We tried to fix it up. We tried to help the Government out at Committee stage by proposing some really sensible amendments that we thought would have made a real difference to this. The area that concerns us most in this bill is the area where it deregulates and lowers the standards in the small passenger vehicle services—always makes me think that it might be a service that jockeys can use being small passengers. I think we need to find a different phrase to use to talk about this service but it is basically what people know of as being—Jonathan Young: Very small passengers.SUE MORONEY: Ha! That is right: small passengers. It is kind of like the taxi services and Uber and trying to bring all those things together and get a level playing field. In doing that the Government is deregulating. Now why this needs some particular attention is that when Tory Governments—when National Governments—deregulate in this country it has led to disastrous outcomes and in other countries too actually. What it normally means is that they deregulate and they just kind of throw away the rule book. They lower standards so far that it makes thing dangerous. So the Pike River mine—there is a local example of an area that was deregulated and 29 men paid the consequences with their lives. Leaky buildings—that is another area where that Government deregulated and now thousands of New Zealand families are out of pocket because of that level of deregulation. So it is always really important to look closely when a National Government deregulates. We think that in this area it is just the same. It is so important—so important—because the people who are using these small passenger vehicle services are often—not always but often—impaired at some level: either temporarily because they have been out on the town and have done the sensible thing and ordered up one of these services rather than driving themselves home or actually because they are permanently impaired. People in the disability community are utterly dependent on these services—utterly dependent on them—for having some level of independence for being able to get around their community and for being able to participate in society. So getting the safety features of these services right affects some of the most vulnerable people in our community. People are often very vulnerable when they are using these services. So here are some of the areas that we think the Government has got wrong in here—where it has deregulated too much where the idea of cost has actually been put ahead of the issue of safety. There are two key areas. One is taking the requirement for Braille signage away from that service. At the moment people will know when they get into a taxi that on the passenger side there is a little plastic strip for people who are sight-impaired and for people who are blind so that they will be able to work out where they are. Are they in the right vehicle? Who is the driver? They will know details about the car that they have just stepped into. But that Government says that that is no longer needed. Here is the bizarre truth: submitters came along and told us—actually most of the advocacy organisations for the disability sector came along and begged the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee not to go down that route not to take away one of those main safety and security features for them. They also told us that those strips can be produced for about $20 each. So for the sake of $20 for people who are sight-impaired to have that certainty and that security—that Government will not even afford them that. It is saying the cost is too high. Well the cost of not getting the service right like the cost of deregulating the mining sector like the cost of deregulating building materials—those costs are simply too high. The Government will argue: Hey it's all right because they are all going to have smartphones."—I have not even got mine on me—"They are all going to have smartphones. They are going to have an app and it is going to say: 'Here's your driver. Here is what he or she looks like.' " You know if you are sight-impaired how is that going to go guys? I am just saying. Those Government members are all nodding over there saying: "Yep. The app is going to sort it out." Yes well how is that going to sort that out? So when Rod Stewart's picture pops up—because we know that a person was able to register as an Uber driver using Rod Stewart's photo and his name and start picking people up when he clearly was not Rod Stewart. And even when fully sighted people could see that the picture and the driver did not match up they still got in the car. So this idea that these technological advances will fix every situation and look after people's safety is just utterly wrong and the Government members have their heads in the sand about it. The second thing that the Labour Party proposed was that all of these services should if they operate in the 18 largest urban areas in New Zealand retain the requirement to have a security service in that vehicle. This provision came in only a few years ago. It was brought in by that National Government. At the time some of the taxi companies rebelled against it. They said: "Oh it will be too costly and it is not a good thing and it is too over-regulating." That was on the back of two vicious murders of taxi drivers—one in Auckland and one in Christchurch. That is why that regulation came in. And do you know what? Since then those same taxi companies are now begging for that provision to stay. Those ones that thought it was overreaching at the time that thought it was going to be too much compliance and too much cost now say that it is the best thing that they did. They have seen the violent offences completely drop—drop by about 40 percent actually in the first couple of years of operation of that new provision. They have also seen that they do not have as many people running off without paying—another unintended but good consequence of having those systems in place. I am going to put that Government on notice right now. I am going to put it on notice. It voted down those two sensible amendments. The first time that a vulnerable woman gets attacked and raped in one of those services and the first time that one of those vulnerable drivers picks up someone violent who attacks them—and I hope we are not talking about murder but a violent attack—I want that Government to stand up and say: "That is our fault. We did that." That is what it is inviting. That Government—[Interruption] Well those members are already shaking their heads and washing their hands of that responsibility but they had the opportunity to vote to have those security systems maintained right across that fleet. They need to understand the seriousness and the consequences of not getting the level of regulation right in this bill.Finally I will say that the other two amendments that we wanted to see put in place were that we did not want to see this change at all until we had certainty that Uber was going to pay its fair share of taxes which it currently does not and that it lived up to the regulations of having logbooks and driver hours which it currently does not in some circumstances. Those are just about fairness and getting it right. If we are going to have a level playing field for everyone then let us do it right across the board and get that right. We support this bill with major reservations."