Copeland Gordon: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Copeland Gordon: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:629;Page:1957] 
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 I would like to make a couple of further points during the third reading debate on the Land Transport Amendment Bill. First I refer to the speech made by Dr Wayne Mapp a senior National Party member of Parliament and National’s spokesperson on this bill. During his third reading speech Dr Wayne Mapp told this House that the National Party was happy with this bill as reported back by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. He went on to say however that the National members will vote against this bill tonight at its third reading because of the amendments that have been made to it. 
I just draw Dr Mapp’s attention and the attention of the House to the fact that the National Party voted against this bill at its second reading prior to any of those amendments being made or even proposed. The people of this country call upon us all the time and ask us to please get rid of our hypocrisy and our cant from the parliamentary process. So I do not think I should just listen to Dr Wayne Mapp make those statements without pointing out that his words do not match his actions. Words are cheap. He does not bother to walk the talk and that is completely inconsistent. 
The second thing I would like to allude to is this. Dr Wayne Mapp as I have just said made it very very clear that the National Party members were prepared to support this bill as reported back from the select committee but that they were opposed to amending it. Yet tonight a member—in fact two members—of the National Party proposed amendments to the report back from the select committee. I do not know whether it is too late in the night for that guy—he has a lawyer’s brain and may be trying to be too tricky for his own good—but I think it needs to be put on the record that although those statements were made the actions taken by the party itself contradict the words. 
There is another thing I would like to mention in connection with this bill because I think it is quite relevant. I sat on the select committee last year and the year before when we were considering the bill to establish the Charities Commission. That bill had been drafted by the officials to exclude from the membership of charitable trusts anybody with a criminal conviction. That seems reasonable does it not? Why should anyone with a criminal conviction be allowed to sit as a trustee on a charitable trust? That was the view until of course the Prisoners Aid and Rehabilitation Society a charitable trust came along and asked us to hang on a minute suggesting it was actually a good outcome for society if a rehabilitated prisoner was allowed to participate in the direction of a trust. We took the point immediately and said of course it was. We asked ourselves how we could come here as parliamentarians and say that our goal is to rehabilitate prisoners harangue whoever happened to be the Minister of Corrections at the time about our failure to rehabilitate people and then refuse to accept by our actions that they can in fact be rehabilitated. 
 That point is at the heart of this issue. What Parliament forgot about when it got it wrong last year was that people who committed a carnal knowledge type of offence—which today we would regard as a pretty minor matter—40 years ago can in fact be rehabilitated and that it is fundamentally unjust to deny them that opportunity and take away their licences. We took licences—P endorsements; public transport endorsements—away from people who had that right. As a society we had given them licences—we had approved of them having licences—and as a Parliament we turned around and said we were sorry but their licences had gone because of something they did 40 years ago. That was absolutely and completely unjust and that was what we set out to rectify in this bill. 
Finally I say that I am disappointed that the bill is not being agreed to by the House unanimously. I said in my first reading speech on the bill that we really make only one mistake in life and that is one that we do not learn something from. I am disappointed that on this occasion the National Party—I think purely for political reasons of some sort—is not prepared to learn from the mistake that was made last year. We will of course vote in support of the bill. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: Before I call the next speaker members might like to know that New Zealand has won its first gold medal at the Commonwealth Games: Moss Burmester in the 200-metre butterfly.