Lees-Galloway IainIAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): As my colleague—Peeni Henare: It's Rod Stewart.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: —definitely not Rod Stewart—Sue Moroney has said we support the bill overall but we do have some reservations about it. We support the bill because the fact is that ride-sharing technology apps like Uber—Uber is not the only one but it is the one that is most prevalent worldwide and certainly most prevalent in New Zealand. It is the one that we hear from most often. You know that technology is here and it has a lot of benefits.The challenge for us is not to deregulate in response to it but to make sure that we have appropriate regulation that allows the benefits of ride sharing and the benefits of the mobile technology that goes with it and that enables it to be most effective while still ensuring that drivers and their passengers are as safe as they possibly can be. There is a balancing act there and especially when you are dealing with new technology and fast-changing technology it can be a real challenge for us to land in the right place.On the one hand you have got the taxi drivers with their very valid concerns and on the other hand you have got the like of Uber wanting—legitimately I think—to be able to conduct its business and provide a new service without being tied up in unnecessary regulation but to be fair perhaps overlooking some of the things that we need to do to make sure that we keep public safety as much of a priority as it needs to be.I think we need go no further than the example of the Uber driver who at the end of his shift having worked a shift in Auckland picked up some passengers from Auckland and drove them nearly non-stop to Wellington. That was a breach of the work-time requirements. I know the New Zealand Transport Agency is investigating this and the driver claimed that he took the necessary breaks but what is for certain is that he worked a total of 16½ hours when the rule is you work a total of only 13 hours before you have a proper break. Because of the way the technology is set up and because of the difficulties we have in enforcing the rules when dealing with an outfit like Uber that would never have been detected had it not been for the unfortunate circumstance—for the driver—that the passengers were so happy that they went to the media about it and he was hailed as a hero. He was hailed as a hero.It was really obvious from the outset that it was likely that rules had been broken that he had put himself at risk that he had put his passengers at risk and that he had put all the other drivers whom he came across on that journey from Auckland to Wellington at risk and yet the initial story was What a hero." Well that tells us something about our culture towards safety in the workplace and safety amongst people who drive for a living and it tells us that there is something wrong and we need to make sure we get our regulations right.One thing that this bill does away with—and we have decided not to challenge it—is any signage on the vehicle because Uber drivers make the case that that is their own personal vehicle they use it for personal use and they do not want to go around with Uber signage all over their car all the time. The truth is that with the first Uber I ever took when we went to put our bags in the boot there were all the taxi signs that had been pulled off. So now it was a blank white vehicle that we were getting into but actually it was a taxi. They had just taken all the magnetic strips off the car put them in the boot and all of a sudden it was an Uber.But if they take the taxi ones off why can they not just pop an Uber one back on there and hey we know it is an Uber and the people who are tasked with enforcing these rules have one more thing that alerts them to the fact that this is actually a vehicle that is being used in a commercial way and it needs to adhere to commercial rules? Now yes they have got a little certificate on their windscreen so that if you go around with a magnifying glass and you are Inspector Clouseau and you get up really close and you check to see whether that is all correct you will know that that is an Uber. But otherwise if it is just driving down the street you would have no idea that it is a commercial vehicle.We are not challenging it but personally I think that that is a bit of a flaw. I understand that they are not rank and hail that they are not going to be pulling up and sitting at taxi ranks waiting for people to get in that they are using their own cars that they get called up by the app—I get all of that. But from an enforcement perspective I think it would be useful to have that on there. That is ultimately where I think the challenge is going to lie—not so much in the regulations themselves but in how we enforce them and we should make it as easy as possible for enforcement to occur. By the very nature of this business it is going to be harder and harder for us to ensure that drivers are sticking to the rules and passengers are safe.I understand the whole thing about how the app works—that you know who the driver is you know who the passenger is and everybody rates each other. If a passenger does something untoward in the vehicle then that driver will put that on their rating and future drivers will know that or not. If a driver acts in an inappropriate way—like another time I took an Uber and the driver took a phone call on the phone not hands-free whilst they were driving I was able to report that through the app. I get all of that but it does make enforcement of the rules an awful lot harder and just being able to see who are Uber drivers would help.The other thing that I think is incredibly important is those cameras in the cars. It was only a few years ago that the Government thought it was so important that taxis had cameras in the vehicle that it made it mandatory—whether the drivers wanted that expense or not the Government made it mandatory. OK technology has changed. We now have the ride-sharing app. That gives us an opportunity to pause and ask the question: are the cameras still important? I think they are. Regardless of what information you can share on an app whether you are or are not Rod Stewart—if a driver can use a pseudonym then a passenger can certainly use a pseudonym and then maybe attack the driver or whatever—having the camera in the vehicle just provides that extra level of safety.It actually provides safety for the passenger as well. That was the argument that was made when the Government made this mandatory; why not carry on with that argument? There is an expense attached to those cameras but it is coming down all the time. I think the fact that the Government made them mandatory meant that there was plenty of demand for them in New Zealand and the cost of them has come down. If someone wants to use their vehicle as an Uber whether it is full-time or not then installing a camera for their own safety and for the safety of their passengers is not I think a particularly onerous requirement. So we will certainly be supporting Sue Moroney's amendments around that at the Committee stage.I just want to say one last thing and that is around the behaviour of Uber. It has lobbied for these changes. That is perfectly legitimate. Everybody has the right to come to Parliament to come to the Government and say: "We don't think the rules as they are are appropriate for the modern environment. Let's make some changes." But what Uber has done in its arrogance is flout the rules as they currently are and just act as though the rules are what it wants them to be. This is the way it has operated all around the world. Frankly the response from the Government has been weak extremely weak.The approach this Government takes to actually enforcing the rules in so many different areas suggests that it does not actually think there should be rules. The enforcement of requiring Uber drivers to have their P endorsement the enforcement of requiring them to have their vehicles properly certificated has been extremely lax. This is a Government that tells New Zealanders that it believes in the rule of law that people should abide by the law and that there will be consequences for breaking the law but in the case of Uber it has sort of just gone "Oh well." and shrugged its shoulders: "Nothing we can do about it! It's a very difficult area to enforce. Let's just let Uber act in the way it wants to and hey we're going to change the law in its favour eventually so why worry about it?".Why worry about it? Well because there are other perfectly legitimate operators out there—taxi drivers—who have abided by the law and I can understand why they are aggrieved by the way this Government has approached this legislation. We support it but it sure ain't perfect."