O'Connor GregGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Madam Speaker in several minutes you'll be passing this piece of legislation on behalf of the House. I'd like you to listen for a cheer from downstairs where there are a large number of police officers who will be listening to this debate—I've just alerted them to it. Because I've been speaking with them over the last few days that they've been here and they can't wait for this piece of legislation. They're very eager for it like many police officers—Simeon Brown: Why have they had to wait?GREG O'CONNOR: —before them including the time that I spent in the police myself.One of the problems—that we've taken so long to get here. Let's just leave the petty politics out of this please Mr Brown. This is an important piece of legislation. The reason we've taken so long to get here is because with drunk driving or alcohol-impaired driving it's relatively simple because alcohol is a legal substance so we were always able to concentrate on the impairment. Whenever we discussed it when the law was implemented it was always about impairment. The problem with illicit substances particularly cannabis where much of the debate seemed to focus was that it was always clouded—probably a bad pun—by the fact that it was seen as a way to track down or to investigate drug offences. So why this piece of legislation is very good is it ensures as the Minister said before that it actually isn't going to be about drug enforcement; it's going to be about road safety. That again is why we've taken unfortunately so long to get here.I'll just give you an example of how that may work: I'm aware of people who live in a Middle Eastern country where alcohol is illegal. If you are detected with any alcohol on your breath in that country you are arrested not for any driving offence; you are arrested for having alcohol. That has been the fear here. That is why the legislation as put together and well advised by our advisory committee—and I do have to like the Minister really praise the efforts of our Independent Expert Panel on Drug Driving. Because as we went into this process—and I was privileged enough to chair the Transport and Infrastructure Committee that did do this work—we were struggling a little bit with this whole concept of how we made sure we were actually policing impaired driving and it got ourselves away from this whole unfortunate issue of just looking for cannabis smokers which again a lot of our submitters tended to base their whole submission on.So the expert panel led so ably by Dr Helen Poulsen—a toxicologist—who actually did an excellent job helped by Professor Shaw Dr Sharon Kletchko Andrew McGlashen and Malcolm Tingle. These people were able to really assure us as a committee that when the amount of drug is detected there is going to be a tolerance level—that what we're going to be talking about here is an amount of the drug that we and those who are going to administer this will be able to go into the process with confidence knowing it will detect an impairment level.So the first two tests: anyone who fails those two tests will receive an infringement. Now it will be that person's choice whether they want to go on and take blood and should the amount in the blood or multiple substances be detected along with alcohol then they will then enter a criminal regime where obviously the sanction will be much greater. So this is again a piece of legislation that those who are perhaps sitting at home those who are a little bit worried that this is somehow just a way to go after dope smokers—many submitters brought up a fear that someone who had had a joint three weeks ago on a fishing trip to Taupō that they would be detected in this that perhaps someone who was sitting as a passive smoker in a car where others were smoking cannabis that they would be detected.Again anyone who wants some reassurance I would suggest that they actually get hold of this report by the independent expert panel—the report that gave us as a select committee the absolute confidence to recommend this bill to the House and all the provisions within it. Because anyone reading this report with good science from not only around New Zealand but also around the world will be able to satisfy themselves that this is about road safety not about drug investigation.So as the chairman of the committee I'm commending this bill. I can actually now give categorical assurance that for those who probably prevented this moment from arriving a lot earlier that the science has advanced that we can now rest assured that those who appear before courts or those who are fined for being impaired for drug driving that the intended goal of road safety which will come about by getting those people off the road will in fact be reinforced by this piece of legislation. Therefore I have absolutely no hesitation in commending this to the House.