Coddington Deborah: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Coddington Deborah: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
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DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 I want to speak briefly in the third reading of this bill. It is probably the last piece of legislation that I will see all the way through this House and I take the opportunity to thank the chairman of the select committee Mark Gosche who knew what was dear to my heart in this legislation—that is cleaning up the taxi industry by not allowing those who have convictions for serious sexual abuse crimes to hold a P endorsement on their licence and be able to drive taxis or buses. As a member of a small party who is on two select committees and spokesperson for 10 portfolios it was difficult for me to be at every single select committee meeting. The chairman went out of his way to make sure that when I was there we discussed clauses that related to those offences and I do appreciate that. As I said before it was a good—[ 
Interruption 
] If those members would just listen for a moment they would hear that there is no need for them to interject. This legislation is a good example of people working together in a select committee to achieve the required result. I think this legislation does actually make New Zealand in some small way a better place. 
We are cleaning up the taxi industry. We need to clean up the taxi industry. For a while there were a lot of calls that it needed to be totally regulated again. This legislation steers a way between those two opposites if one likes. There is no need to go back to total regulation of the taxi industry. We do not want to go back to the days when women came out of a restaurant at 11 o’clock at night and there was not a taxi in sight. The industry was so tightly controlled and so expensive to get into that there was never a taxi when one really needed one. That did not make for safe cities. There is still some merit to the argument put forward by people who have been in the taxi industry for quite a long time that perhaps we should look at devolving the control of the taxi industry back to local authorities or local communities. They have an interest in keeping a good taxi industry in their town or city because it is a reflection on the state of their town or city. They could take some pride in having a good fleet of taxis good drivers and all that sort of thing. It is more a matter of self-interest for them. This bill does not deal with that but maybe it will be dealt with in the future. 
One of the things that I am particularly pleased got through is the provision to make the ban on those with serious convictions retrospective; it will apply to those already in the industry. It is a very high bar; sexual crimes subject to a sentence of 7 years’ jail or more murder and a number of other crimes fall into that category. But we did discuss and get the officials to work out whether we could make it retrospective. We all agreed and there was cross-party support with Lianne Dalziel Lynne Pillay Maurice Williamson and myself in particular agreeing that it was just not good enough to allow these people to drive in these situations—even to drive a bus. Maurice Williamson raised the point that perhaps the case of a bus driver is not quite so bad because a lot of passengers are on board so it is harder to commit a crime. That is not the only point. I believe that people who pay for a service—and we are talking about paying passengers here—have a right to know that the person who is driving and in charge of that service is a fit and proper person. By a fit and proper person we mean that that person has not been convicted of any serious crime. It is not just about whether we give them the opportunity to commit those crimes again; it is about the safety of communities and the perception of being safe. 
That is why I agreed that we needed to look at the issue of being fair to those who have been rehabilitated—that they should have a right of appeal to the High Court when their application to renew their licence is turned down. We now have seen that come in on a Supplementary Order Paper slightly differently. Unlike the Minister I do not have a huge amount of faith in the Director of Land Transport in terms of his using his discretion to decide whether those people are fit and proper persons especially when their crimes were committed overseas. However we shall have to see. 
The thing I do take issue with is the 10-year barrier. Peter Brown thinks 10 years is enough—what if for instance the taxi-driver has been rehabilitated enough to own his or her own business? Hundreds of sex offenders and murderers own their own business. Owning one’s own business does not make one a safe person by any stretch of the imagination. Kidnapping a child is one of the crimes that under this legislation would bar a person from getting a taxi licence but under Supplementary Order Paper 375 one would have a right of appeal—one would not be barred automatically. Say a person kidnapped a 6-year-old girl was convicted for that and did his or her time and that was 10½ years ago. That little girl would now be 16½ years. She gets into a cab and sees that the man who kidnapped her 10 years ago is driving the cab. Ten years ago is nothing to that person. In that person’s life it is nothing. 
Another crime that comes under the category of appeal is attempted murder. For murder a person is automatically barred but for attempted murder a person is not. The intent is still the same; it is just that the person did not succeed. He or she did not kill the person; he or she attempted to murder the person intended to murder him or her. To me 10 years back is not enough. What if a person was the subject of a murder attempt when he or she was 40 years old and 10 years later jumps on a bus hands over the fare and sees that the driver is the person who attempted to murder him or her 10 11 12 years ago? Those people should not have such a low barrier to the right of appeal. I still think they should go back to the High Court to fight it out there. If they were genuinely rehabilitated and genuinely believed that they had a right to be in a position of trust then they would put their money where their mouth is and fork out the amount of money needed to appeal to the High Court. They would not take such an appeal lightly. I am not saying that people do not become rehabilitated; they do. But there are plenty of other jobs—and other driving jobs—that they can do. 
In closing another thing that the bill does not address but that needs to be addressed in terms of taxi-drivers is stopping Work and Income New Zealand from using taxpayers’ money to set immigrants up with cars and licences—providing translators when they sit exams and putting signs on its walls telling them that they can get jobs as taxi-drivers. As someone said recently when one comes out of the Auckland airport one could be excused for thinking one was in downtown Delhi or somewhere like that. We have more than enough taxi-drivers. We do not need to spend taxpayers’ money putting immigrants into taxis. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: So they don’t deserve a job? 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: Of course they deserve a job. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: They don’t deserve a job? 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: The Minister says they do not deserve a job. He might think they do not deserve a job. I ask him whose money is getting them into a job. It is taxpayers’ money; money is being taken off the taxpayers to get them into a job. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: So are we going to spend money on white people getting a job? 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: We only take brown immigrants do we? I thought we took immigrants from all over the world. The Minister does not want brown immigrants getting into jobs. Well that is very interesting from that Minister. 
In conclusion I am just pleased to be able to support this legislation. Although it will not be the silver bullet for the taxi industry or the transport industry it goes a long way and the ACT party will be voting for it.