Williamson Maurice: Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) — First Reading 
Williamson Maurice: Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) — First Reading 
[Volume:642;Page:12386] 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 I say from the outset that National will most certainly be supporting not just the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) going to a select committee but also as long as we can be assured of all of the various bits and pieces we will support it through the Committee stage and right through the entire process. I am very very supportive of any measure that will stop people driving motor vehicles while they are impaired. I do not actually care what causes the impairment—whether it is a legal drug the driver has been prescribed but on which he or she should not be driving an illegal drug or alcohol—I am really happy with any way we can get our road toll down by taking those impaired people off the road and I tell members that they can count me in for it. 
This issue was canvassed during my time as Minister. One of the concerns back then which I think technology and time have overcome was that it would always be difficult to work out what level of drugs were in a person’s system and how much of an impairment it created. 
One of the issues I would be very keen to get teased out in the committee is the fact that some illegal drugs are different from alcohol. You see if alcohol is in someone’s system then he or she is likely to be impaired during the time the alcohol is there—for a period of about 8 or 12 hours. By the time that person has had a good rest a sleep some breakfast and so on the impairment will have gone unless he or she is really blotto. But in the case of some drugs quite high residual levels will stay in a person’s system for some weeks or for days at least. 
Hon Annette King 
: Yes but this only measures the time that it was active. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: I understand that. But what happens is that a person may have lost all of the buzz or the little kick he or she gets out of the drug. 
Let us say that a person took some drugs some marijuana or something at a party on a Friday night and was badly impaired for that night—and if that person was not caught then he or she should have been. But what if on Saturday that person did nothing then on Sunday night he or she was driving to a friend’s place and still had quite high levels of the marijuana or substance in the bloodstream but it was not having any effect in terms of impairing that person’s driving ability? This was always the debate in the past—that some of these things have residual levels remaining in the body for a longer time frame but they do not have the same sort of impact that alcohol has. Alcohol knocks a person around when it is there but once it has worked its way out of the body it has gone. 
Hon Annette King 
: They can now measure that. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Yes I understand that. I think the Minister is right in saying that we can now measure some of that stuff. The technology is getting better and better. 
There was always the difficulty about trying to assess it. First of all the initial test on the roadside was always a little bit subjective as to whether someone was actually impaired. Then we get into blood testing and checking and I am delighted to see that the legislation has imposed an almost complete mirror of what the alcohol stuff is. The penalties are all mirroring the penalties for driving while alcohol-impaired. 
Frankly I do not think the public really care what is creating the impairment; what they do care about is that people should not be out there driving if they are impaired. Those people should not be on the road. Another person’s rights cease when my family is in danger and I am happy to say that if I know of anybody who is driving while impaired then I want that person off the roads. I am sure that every member of this House feels the same way. No lame excuse for any of that behaviour will work. Drug-impaired people should not be driving. 
This is not a “we are against illicit drugs” campaign. In my view this is nothing to do with a judgment value about whether marijuana or anything else should be allowed. It could turn out to be Prozac Viagra or something else—I do not know; I struggle with the name for some drugs these days. Maybe Zantac or something like that is a more common drug. Any of those drugs can impair a person’s ability to drive and the clinician makes that clear by way of the script when the drugs are prescribed. 
I understand that if people are not told that a prescribed drug has an impact on their driving and they are taking say Prozac to make them feel a bit better then it should not be an offence. I am pleased to hear the Minister say that there will be a defence in the case of legal drugs provided the person was not told they cause impairment. But I know that some scripts and some doctors will say that a person must not drive a vehicle within 24 hours of taking medication. If people ignore that advice then they should be dealt to in the exact same way as if they knowingly drink alcohol and then drive a vehicle. 
This is the sort of legislation that National was always desperately keen to try to do and there was always some sort of civil liberty argument against it or we were told that the technology was not quite ready yet but that we would get there one day. I think it was about 10 years ago we were looking at the Land Transport Bill— 
Pansy Wong 
: 9 years ago. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: In 1998 we were looking at doing it and now in 2008 it will become the law which is good. 
The second part of the bill is again something I think we certainly support in principle but we know there will be some difficulties in regard to technical bits. We think that personal information on the motor vehicle register should stay personal. I think it is just wrong that guys can spot a hot chick driving past and say “I think I might find out where she lives and whip round to catch her to see if I can get a date with her.” That is simply wrong and I understand that has gone on in the past. Or in the case of road rage where for example a person is cut off then that person can find out where the offender lives go round to the offender’s place and throw rocks at his or her house and so on. 
But there are some legitimate reasons for using the motor vehicle register and I think the legislation will allow those ones that I am interested in. If it does not then I hope the select committee will work in a cooperative way—as it does—to try to ensure that the register is not readily available to members of the general public. Certainly it should not be possible to access information just by making a phone call. I find it really galling to think that big marketing companies can do mass downloads of two-point-something million names and addresses and suddenly we find our letterboxes full of spam as if we do not have enough already. We think electronic spam is bad enough but my letterbox bursts at the seams most days from catalogues brochures and stuff I simply do not want. Even the “no circulars” message does not stop it. So we should stop all that. 
I know for example that if motorcar manufacturers find a fault in a particular model— 
Hon Annette King 
: We can do that. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Yes I know that. That is what I am saying. One of the things we would most certainly want is for the Ford motor company to be able to say that for example there is a particular problem with the latest Mondeo version and because it involves a faulty brake cable or something else dangerously wrong it would like to do a recall and it needs to know who the current owners of that particular model are. I know that 4 years after the release of the Chrysler Voyager I own that model was recalled because a particular fault had been identified. Those cars could easily have been through two or three owners in that time. So that is a legitimate reason for access to the register. Some people in the motor trade industry have expressed to me the need for balance in terms of allowing some legitimate access to this information but not allowing open access to it as there is right now. 
Having said that I say that the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) contains two very good measures. National has always been supportive of these measures and I think the time has come where technology will allow for drug-driving testing and for a punitive measure to take effect. We will watch with great interest to see what the various submissions will be on the question of access to personal information on the motor vehicle register. We have to make sure we get the balance right so that access to information is allowed where it can be justified for legitimate purposes but it should not be allowed willy-nilly—for example for car thieves trying to get high-value motor vehicles.