Roy Heather: Land Transport Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Roy Heather: Land Transport Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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HEATHER ROY (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I stand to speak to the first reading of the Land Transport Amendment Bill 2006. ACT as will I think every other party in this House will support the passage of the bill to a select committee and hopefully further on. 
It is always unfortunate when people who have committed minor offences often decades ago receive extraordinarily harsh treatment further down the track. The Minister for Transport Safety I am sure will correct me if I am wrong but I think that about 200 people have been affected and 160 of those people who were in employment have subsequently lost their jobs. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: 160 who have a licence. 
HEATHER ROY 
: Thank you. Those people’s lives have been affected. Those people’s families’ lives have been affected. We have all received the letters and we have all seen the people interviewed on television on radio and in the newspapers. I spoke to a Rotary club in January and one man at question time asked me how 121 MPs could have got this so badly wrong. He was not familiar with the select committee process and the passage of law. But we all have to take some responsibility. We all get the opportunity to speak in the Committee stage of a bill and we all get the opportunity at select committees—maybe not voting rights but the opportunity—to take part in the legislative process. Although blame has been apportioned to this particular select committee we also need to remember that select committees and MPs must look at the quality of the advice they are given at the time. 
 So we have heard any number of examples of people affected by the unintended consequences of the legislation. Although we have had a lot of discussion about the specifics relating to this bill we should spend some time looking at the wider issue of unintended consequences of legislation. Of the two that spring to my mind one is a bill that was introduced to the House yesterday and is a second amendment to the Employment Relations Act 2000. The current amendment affects independent contractors’ rights to re-employment when the main contract changes. The other one which probably had the most publicity was the Holidays Act 2003 which had to be quickly amended in 2004 to fix a number of issues with employers paying holiday pay. So this is not an isolated case. There frequently are unintended consequences not only of our lawmaking but also of proposed legislation. As MPs we need to think very carefully about what those unintended consequences might be. It is important particularly when we are looking at rushing legislation quickly through this House as we frequently do under urgency. 
We have had a lot of discussion too about what might happen when this legislation moves through to a select committee. Just about every speaker has referred to the fact that the amendment bill is not tidy enough yet and that there is a lot of discussion yet to go on. We have heard a lot of talk too about the grey areas and that of course is where the difficulties will arise. As for the explanatory note I too like Mr Williamson was going to highlight the point that the director will be required to consider expanded criteria but also will be required to look at tightened criteria. I hope that once the bill gets to a select committee all of those issues will be explored very carefully and that the advice given will be pertinent advice that has been given a lot of thought. 
We have heard from various speakers. ACT does not have a representative on the committee so we will be reliant on other members to look at the issues carefully and to consider them carefully. The issues of compensation of course must be addressed. I would have thought there would be some discussion about whether compensation should be issued. An appeal process which does not currently exist under the Act in place will be looked at and there has been some very sensible discussion I thought on sentence-based assessments which was talked about by firstly Mr Peter Brown and also discussed by the United Future leader. The discretion of the director will also be explored in some detail I should have thought. I am not sure whether the Minister really does want to expand the criteria or whether he wants to tighten them. But the role of the director will be vital in determining for the future who can and cannot hold P licences. 
So I look forward to seeing this bill tidied up. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: If you actually read the words you will see that both “expand” and “tighten” are correct. Read them in the context they are in. 
HEATHER ROY 
: I am reading them directly as they are printed— 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: It’s a cheap shot. Read it properly. 
HEATHER ROY 
: It is not a cheap shot. It is actually my point if I might be allowed to express it. There is still some tidying up to do and the Minister himself in fact agreed and I think every party has agreed that some tidying up of this legislation is necessary. It is very easy to sit in a select committee or in this House and forget that people’s lives are impacted directly by our actions. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Only if you are out of touch like you are. 
HEATHER ROY 
: Mr Cosgrove seems to think he is immune from that. That is very very revealing and that of course is why he sits on the other side of the House. Those of us on this side take very carefully our responsibility to consider the implications of our lawmaking. I look forward to this bill moving speedily through the select committee process and the House so that those 160 people whose licences have been removed from them are able to move on with their lives and back into paid employment. They certainly were managing very well before this law came in. They are now dependent on welfare for their livelihood. For their families and themselves that is very distressing. 
Christopher Finlayson 
: The goodwill of their businesses may have been destroyed. 
HEATHER ROY 
: Exactly and some of the emails and letters I have received point that out very specifically. It is always very difficult to get right the balance between safety of our citizens and fairness and again I think all parties have acknowledged that. It is a fine line but one that I am sure can be achieved if the proper process is gone through if the advice that the select committee gets is good and if the select committee considers carefully as I have said all the options available. 
ACT is pleased that this amendment bill has come before the House. We have assured the Minister of our support. We have written to him to say that. In fact we have written to each of the people who have written to us about their concerns regarding the injustices—usually to themselves but some of them have written on behalf of other people—to assure them also that we as a party will be very supportive of legislation to correct this unintended consequence. ACT is very pleased to support this bill.