Locke Keith: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Locke Keith: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
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KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Greens are very disappointed that the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee has disembowelled the Land Transport Amendment Bill sent to us last month. The bill as sent to the select committee righted a major injustice to 200 or so former offenders who are currently driving buses and taxis and to many rehabilitated former criminals who may want to drive buses and taxis in the future. This all goes back to a serious misjudgment made by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee last year. The committee then was dealing with a real problem that was illustrated by a few cases of taxi drivers assaulting and raping passengers. So it was useful to have the former sex offenders and violent offenders looked at and for them to have to go through the hoops to get a clean bill of health. That was only if their offences had been some time ago—the amending bill had 10 years as a guideline—and if it was established that they had clearly been rehabilitated. The idea was that the Director of Land Transport would look at those individual cases and grant exemptions where appropriate. 
The problem was that the select committee last year made a couple of mistakes. Firstly it dealt only with injustices to existing drivers who might have been rehabilitated former offenders not injustices to those rehabilitated former offenders who might apply for bus and taxi jobs in the future. Secondly although the committee allowed current drivers whose past offences were for violence a chance to get approvals it denied that chance to former sex offenders. As the January date to implement those exclusions approached there was quite an outcry across the country as members know. Drivers who had spent most of their life in the industry with spotless work records were being kicked out because for example 30 years ago they had a carnal knowledge conviction for sleeping with a 15-year-old when they were themselves 16. 
Our Green MP on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee last year Mike Ward warned what would happen in his minority comments in the committee’s report back to Parliament. He reported that failure to include an exemption for former sex offenders “… means that we are elevating taxi driving to a status well above such sensitive areas as early childhood education in terms of the standards we impose on those involved. In the Green Party’s view the main result will be to penalise a small number of individuals who have long since been rehabilitated while doing little to improve the safety of taxi passengers overall.” Mike Ward also said that: “The Green Party is uncomfortable with the potential for injustice especially when there is no evidence that such a blanket prohibition delivers a significant improvement in safety compared with alternatives.” And how right Mike Ward was. 
The Green Party hoped that the exposure in January and February of several individual cases of such injustice and the public sympathy for the bus and taxi drivers concerned would knock a bit of sense into the more conservative politicians in the House who jump on the “bash the criminals” bandwagon. We hoped that when the Minister for Transport Safety Harry Duynhoven came in with an amending bill last month National ACT United Future and New Zealand First would get behind it. But the National and New Zealand First majority on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee seems to have mucked it up. Harry Duynhoven’s new Land Transport Amendment Bill that went to the select committee in February rectified most of the problems. It allowed former violent offenders and sex offenders to go to the Director of Land Transport for an exemption. The director’s consideration would be based on the length of time since the person’s last conviction any other convictions the person might have and whether there was still a threat to public safety and security. Unfortunately the select committee ripped the guts out of Harry Duynhoven’s bill and restricted the exemptions to some but not all categories of former sex offenders and even then only to those people currently in the industry not to people who might want to become bus and taxi drivers in the future. Former violent offenders were left out in the cold altogether. 
I have had emails from people complaining about the injustice shown to them and others resulting from those changes brought in at the select committee—for example one person in the taxi industry who is now 47 was convicted of armed robbery when he was 18. That might sound like a very serious offence but he must have been at the lower end of the scale for that crime because he received only 6 months’ periodic detention. He will be pushed out of the industry if the bill goes through in its present form even though he has given the industry over 20 years of meritorious service and has kept his nose clean all of that time. Under the select committee’s prescription he has no chance of getting an exemption. He will be in the same category as all the other former violent offenders regardless of how much they have rehabilitated themselves. 
The Green Party will be voting for Jim Anderton’s amendment in the Committee of the whole House and we sincerely hope that it will get through. At least it rectifies most of the problems caused by the select committee. Under Jim Anderton’s amendment any former offenders will be able to apply for an exemption to drive a bus or taxi whether or not they have been convicted of a violent or a sex offence and whether or not they are currently in the industry or are new applicants. The only qualification is that they have not been in prison for an offence for more than a year. We would have liked that qualification not to be there but we are putting our main efforts into getting support for Jim Anderton’s amendment even with the weakness that I have described. 
The Greens have a principled compassionate approach that does not bend to the “bash the criminals” mob at all. Our compassion is first and foremost for the victims of crime and their families and friends. But we do not help the victims unless we also try to help the offenders and work with their families and public agencies to rehabilitate them. In doing so we can help to prevent reoffending and the creation of new criminals. Surely with over 7000 people now in prison—and the number is growing—and many of them are violent offenders with a very high reoffending rate we must work at rehabilitation. 
 We have to show compassion to people who are trying to rehabilitate themselves fully and we must have confidence that people can be fully rehabilitated. We have to give former offenders the incentive that they do have a future if they fully rehabilitate themselves whatever crime they have committed. Everyone deserves to have a chance to prove they have become good and respectable citizens. Unfortunately Jim Anderton’s amendment does not go quite far enough to meet that compassionate and rehabilitative ethos. Take for example a case I was approached about this week. It concerns a man who 25 years ago was convicted for armed robbery and was in jail for 3 years. He does not qualify under Jim Anderton’s amendment yet the offence was committed 25 years ago and he has made a good contribution to society ever since. He is good at working with disabled people which not everyone is. He wants a passenger licence so as to be able to carry disabled people around in his taxi. It is a shame that under Jim Anderton’s amendment he will not have any chance to do so. 
We believe that the Director of Land Transport would be qualified to deal with that former armed robber’s case and to judge whether he is truly rehabilitated. Such an approach would be in the spirit of the Clean Slate Bill—a Green Party initiative that was passed in the last Parliament. It allows people who have relatively minor offences and who have not offended in 7 years to have their records wiped so they cannot be discriminated against in jobs and elsewhere. It is even illegal for employers to try to get information on potential employees if that information is restricted under the provisions of the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act. Surely in that spirit a person who was convicted of a more serious crime that happened 30 or 40 years ago but who has not reoffended since can be deemed to be fully rehabilitated—or at least should have a chance to show that he or she has not reoffended over that 30 or 40 years. That is the common-sense compassionate humanitarian way to go. It also accords with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act which says that people should not be subject to double jeopardy—that is they should not be punished twice for the same crime. 
People who have served their time should not be punished again and again for the rest of their days by being denied the jobs they are suited to and can serve the community in. We must take an approach of compassion and we must take an approach of rehabilitation. That is the Green Party’s approach to this bill.