O'Rourke Denis: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 30 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19724. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First):New Zealand First supports tougher measures to curb the worst cases of drink-driving but this bill the Land Transport Amendment Bill is badly targeted and is aimed at the drink-drivers who do the least harm. It leaves the real culprits alone. Some speakers have listed research and listed casualties without tying them back to these particular proposals. They would lower the breath-alcohol limit from 400 micrograms to 250 micrograms and would reduce the blood-alcohol limit from 80 milligrams to 50 milligrams. Disobedience of these new limits is to be addressed only in the form of infringement notices like it was a parking offence on the grounds that they are in the least-serious range of offending. That is really the issue here. The people in this range between the existing thresholds and the new ones proposed are not the people who cause the deaths and the injuries. By far most of the worst accidents are caused by the heavier drinkers who are already caught by the existing law and who will be unaffected by this bill. So targeting the people who drink to only the extent covered by this new infringement offence is not likely to have the desired effect of reducing the death and injury rate on our roads to any significant extent.It is really just another politically correct measure to make it look as though the Government actually cares about this issue—a belated attempt to upstage the Labour proposal. The lower infringement limits as proposed in this bill may in fact have an unintended perverse effect. There will be some people who will convince themselves that drinking to between a blood-alcohol range of 50 milligrams to 80 milligrams or to between 250 to 400 micrograms per litre of breath when driving is an acceptable risk because it is only an infringement offence for which a small fine and a few demerit points are incurred if the driver is caught. So this bill may end up actually having the opposite effect to that which is intended.Although there is some evidence in research that shows driver impairment between the proposed limits and the existing limits there is very little convincing evidence that most people are actually likely to harm themselves or others if they do so. In fact the Australian experience is that that has very little effect. It is therefore clear to me that New Zealand’s existing alcohol limits in relation to driving are unlikely to be too high and that lowering them would be unlikely to be effective. This is also the position taken by the United Kingdom Government and its drink-driving regime works very well indeed. So it is hard to accept that there is any sense in the measures proposed in this bill at all. We in New Zealand First believe that a better long-term effect could be achieved firstly by increasing the penalties for offending against the existing alcohol limits of 80 milligrams per 100 litres of blood and 400 milligrams per litre of breath. That is what the Government should be doing. That would make the worst drink-drivers really sit up and take notice. The point is that it is the deterrence that really matters and there is very little deterrence in this bill.Secondly we want people to clearly understand that the possibility of being caught is actually a probability by having more police on the road and more random breath tests. But this Government which is soft on policing will not spend the money needed to do that but instead has taken the soft option we see in this bill. The proposed new infringement penalties do not reflect the seriousness of drink-driving and that will certainly be noticed by people disposed to drinking and driving. The proposed breath-alcohol limit will not even be a criminal offence incurring the full force of the law but will instead provide for only a small fine of $200 and 50 demerit points and the new blood-alcohol limit will incur only a fine of $500 and 50 demerit points. Demerit points themselves may only eventually lead to loss of licence so their effect as a deterrent is not immediate which is what is needed for drink-drivers and the fines are derisory and are clearly not an adequate deterrent at all.The public does actually want stronger action and leadership on drink-driving than this Government is apparently prepared to take. New Zealand First wants higher penalties to raise the stakes for the existing limits which reflects public opinion but in the end what we really need is a culture change towards having more sensible drinking habits especially among young people. That change in achieving the road safety objective will not come from penalties that are perceived to be soft as these will be. They must reinforce and underpin the process for social change and better drinking habits along of course with continued education and promotional efforts. This legislation in New Zealand First’s view fails on all counts and for those reasons we will vote against it.