Henare Tau: Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Henare Tau: Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:672;Page:18435] 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson. I love the third reading debate because that is when everybody seems to become pious and nice and there is no rough and tumble. I love how the Opposition members when they have been in Opposition for only a couple of years having come from a stint of being— 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Oh! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: That member does not want to hear it. I know those members do not want to hear this but they were in power for 9 years. Iain Lees-Galloway said that now is the most opportune time to do something. Why did it become the most opportune time? It became the most opportune time to do something because Labour became the Opposition. For 9 years those members did not do anything. We have heard what I consider to be nothing more than— 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: It took a long time to fix up the mess from the 1990s. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Well that lady will not win out in west Auckland; we know that. She has not even found her way around west Auckland so far. 
The fact of the matter is that the problem we face today is with the recidivist drink-driver. That is where the carnage is. It is not with the young person and it is not with the older person who might be caught once but it is actually with the recidivist drink-driver. That is where the problem is. I am proud to be a member of the Government that has attacked that area. My message to the recidivist drink-driver is that we are coming for you; you cannot hide any more. No you cannot hide even from the Assistant Speaker. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member was referring to the Chair and he has been around long enough to know he should not do that. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Well at least I will—no no I will not say that Mr Assistant Speaker. 
Hon Member 
: Go on. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: No I will not say that. 
The idea that the Greens and Labour have found a new heartfelt area of concern boggles the mind because they were part of a Government that spent 9 years here and did not do a damn thing. I am quite proud to be part of a Government that clearly saw that there were things to do—that clearly saw we should raise the driver-licensing age. You know I am with most people here in the House who say: “Yeah I got my licence at 15 and could not wait to get it.” but that was when there were Cortinas and the likes. Nowadays the sort of car that one can get would drag off anything from those days. Times have changed so we must move with the times and put on more restrictions purely and simply for safety reasons: purely and simply to save lives. I think this Road Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill as it states is about road safety. It is about saving lives; it is about what we want to do as a contribution towards saving someone’s life. 
I know that there are plenty of people here in this House who have had experience with somebody being either maimed or killed as the result of a drink-driver. I will say that the person out there who is most a target of this legislation is the recidivist drink-driver who gets into his car—and it is usually a “he”—and who does not think about what he has already been done for which is drink-driving. 
Again I thank the Minister of Transport I thank the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and I thank the officials for doing such a wonderful job of putting the information there. The process has been one whereby we have been able to hear from young people from older people and from experts in this area. Our officials have done a very very good job of clearing the way through all of that information allowing us to make up our minds and giving us the direction that we all needed to have. I think that it is time for members opposite to support this legislation and put on the back-burner their little populist issues. They can have their time when and if they get back to the Treasury benches. That is the time for it. They should get in behind us let us do the job and wait for their turn in 2035.