Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you Madam Chair for the opportunity to take a call on the Land Transport (Drug Driving) Amendment Bill. This is a bill which the National Party supports and we don't intend to spend too much time debating the various parts to this bill due to the fact that it is a piece of legislation we believe whose time has come. Actually what we want to see is progress of this piece of legislation through Parliament in order to give the police the tools that they need to be able to undertake drug-driving tests on our roadsides as they do drink-driving tests. I do just want to acknowledge the fact that this piece of legislation has been a long time coming. I acknowledge former colleagues Alastair Scott and the Hon Nick Smith for their advocacy in bringing this bill to the House but also the fact that it has taken quite some time to get to this stage where we are now debating it in the committee of the whole House. It has sat on the Order Paper for far too long. The points that I wish to make really are the fact that this piece of legislation does make a positive difference in terms of providing effectively a regime whereby the police are able to undertake random roadside oral-fluid testing for drugs. There are of course then the infringement penalties and criminal penalties which are able to be put against people who are found to be in breach of those limits and then the subsequent consequences. Yes it is a complex issue and I think that its complexities have been considered quite in depth when it went through the select committee stage where submitters were able to express their views and the bill has been improved. But the reality is now we're at a point where actually what is important is that this legislation is passed that the police are able to have the tools that they need to be able to actually start implementing it. It has been far too long and so I don't want to spend too much time on this piece of legislation. From the National Party's perspective what we actually want to get done is get this bill passed. We want to give police the tools and we want to ensure that the police have the opportunity to do that. Now I do know there's a couple of amendments from the Green Party. I think one is in relation to a review and I don't think that's necessarily a bad idea. But there's another Supplementary Order Paper there which effectively says that the law expires—so some sort of sunset clause. But I imagine we'll get to that when we get to the actual title and commencement and whether that's—and of course we don't support having this piece of legislation automatically expire after five years. The reality is unfortunately that drugs are part of New Zealand's society and the reality is this type of legislation is going to be necessary for the foreseeable future. So I think it's incredibly naive of the Green Party to effectively say that in five years' time this legislation won't be necessary because actually—maybe in their dystopian world they live in maybe they'll be thinking that all drugs will be legal in five years' time and that we'll all be in our happy place and actually that driving down the road on a high is OK. Well I'm sorry. That's not the future I want for myself or my children. I actually want to know that when I'm driving down the road or my children are driving down the road that actually they'll be safe from drug drivers and that there are penalties in place for people who do drive under the influence of drugs on our roads. I don't think we should be coming back as a Parliament in five years' time and effectively renegotiating whether that's actually something which should be OK or not. Actually we need to have a regime which has a level of permanence a level of consistency and not one which is dreaming of some sort of world which actually is unfortunately not going to be a reality—and actually a world which I don't actually want which is a world where effectively we sort of tolerate anybody driving down the road with anything in their system. I actually don't tolerate that. And so actually I want this legislation to be implemented and I want it to stay because actually I want our roads to become safer. I think it's important to note that the instances of drugged driving—and the Minister may correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is that there are now more instances of drugged driving causing death than drink driving causing death on our roads. That is something which I think is an incredibly serious point and which New Zealanders should be incredibly concerned about particularly as that trend has rapidly increased in recent years and is something which needs to be urgently arrested. I think it's part of the reason why the road toll has increased in recent years and it is something which needs to be looked at.I see the Minister of Police Hon Poto Williams there on the other side and acknowledge her and the police in the work that they do but there is a real issue around their implementation of the road safety work. I do note in last year's annual report for police they only implemented half of the breath tests that they were required to do—so they were required to do 3 million breath tests last year; only 1.5 million of those were actually completed. And so the reality is that the proof will be in the pudding and actually giving this legislation to the police and then making sure that there is the resource to actually deliver on it and that the Government actually delivers on it—hopefully finally next year actually delivers on its three-year promise of 1800 new police which was meant to be implemented by 2020 but of course has fallen well behind. So we look forward to supporting this piece of legislation. We look forward to it coming into effect and we look forward to the impact it's going to have on our roads.