Shearer David: Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Shearer David: Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:671;Page:17803] 
DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) 
: 
 As previous speakers have said Labour supports the Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. We think that many aspects of the bill will improve safety on our roads. The previous speaker Dr Jackie Blue mentioned a number of those aspects and we go along with them. 
But there are a number of areas where we believe that we could have had a much better bill and we oppose what has been put up. The ultimate test I think for anything on road safety has to be: let us do something that works let us do something that is proven and let us do something that has evidence to back it up—evidence to back it up. So when we have a bill that does not address the alcohol limit by dropping the limit from 0.8 to 0.5 it is a wasted opportunity. It is not only a wasted opportunity—it has much more profound effects than that—it is a waste of lives. 
We know that if we bring that alcohol limit down we can save in the order of 20 or 30 lives according to people who have done the research on this sort of thing. I do not understand when we know that the evidence is telling us that 0.5 is much safer than 0.8 why we do not bring it down. More than 300 reports internationally have done work on this. For some reason the Minister of Transport Steven Joyce seems to believe that we need to do more research on New Zealand as if the human beings in New Zealand are somewhat different from the human beings anywhere else in the world. Somehow we have to have our own international research that applies to us. 
If he drinks three-quarters of a bottle of wine it brings him up to the 0.8 limit. He said that with that amount of wine in his system he certainly would not drive yet he is quite willing for everybody else to have that amount of alcohol in them and drive. The man is simply not being consistent and not looking at the evidence before him. 
We need to have a blood-alcohol limit of 0.5; even the Prime Minister agrees with this. The Prime Minister said that that probably was the best thing to do yet for some reason Mr Joyce felt he needed to go out and consult again. For some reason we need another 2 years of research and for some reason he needed to test the polling as this Government tends to do. It needs to test the polling before a decision is made rather than trust the evidence. So we end up with a delay in the inevitable reduction of the blood-alcohol limit from 0.8 down to 0.5. 
When Mr Joyce went out and checked the polling he found strangely that people out there—70 percent of the public—wanted to bring the blood-alcohol limit down. Those people recognise unlike him that it will make our roads a safer place to be on. 
That is one piece of evidence that this Government has chosen to ignore. The other one—which is not so critical in terms of driver safety but is nevertheless based on evidence—is that somehow raising the driving age from 15 years to 16 years will make the roads much safer. Actually the evidence proves that it does not make the roads safer. Bringing the driving age up does not improve the safety on our roads. It is the first 2 years after getting a licence that is the most dangerous time for young males up to the age of 25 years. There is absolutely no evidence to substantiate the claims that raising the age from 15 years to 16 years will make our roads safer. 
It will however make it incredibly difficult for youth in rural areas to get to and from school and for young people to take on jobs. We all know that public transport particularly in the city that I come from is not provided with the sort of funding it needs so people need cars. The people who suffer from this change will be 16 and 17-year-olds who maybe are starting a job need to get to school or need to get to sports clubs quite responsibly. As I said there is no evidence that raising the age will somehow make an enormous amount of difference. 
The third area that I will touch on—and this just shows that the Minister is not serious about road safety—is Mr Joyce’s famed “Holiday Highway” from Puhoi to Wellsford. If he really was serious about road safety and if he really was concerned then he would know that the piece of road that he will build between Puhoi and Wellsford at an incredible cost to the taxpayer is a completely unnecessary road. We could have had the same benefits delivered for a fraction of the price by making safety changes and we could spend the rest of that money on other things like perhaps the broken infrastructure in Christchurch. But no we will go ahead with a piece of road that will enable people in the holiday weekends to get to their holiday baches in Omaha much quicker which is the only thing that this piece of roading will do. It will allow people to arrive about 7 or 8 minutes more quickly. 
Approximately one person a year dies on that stretch of road. That is a tragedy and it could be improved by making safety changes. The terrible statistic is that that the Warkworth to Wellsford road the second piece of that road kills five people a year every year—certainly in the last 5 or 6 years—yet we will not get any progress on that part of the road. 
I have submitted written questions asking about the plans of the Minister and the New Zealand Transport Agency to improve that stretch of road including Dome Valley which is a very dangerous piece of road. This road kills five people a year. We will not get any action on it for the next 10 years. As a result of that at least 50 people will end up being killed on that piece of road because the Minister has decided to build a fanciful white elephant “Holiday Highway” between Puhoi and Wellsford so that he can get to his bach at Omaha quicker. 
That is the bottom line here. It is really about getting people to their holiday homes. It is about helping the sorts of people Mr Joyce would like to help: his mates the sorts of people he has just given a tax cut to and the sorts of people he is looking to expand Auckland’s boundaries for so that they can make a killing on the property market. Those sorts of people do not necessarily use the trains; they like to use the motorways. Those are the sorts of people this Minister wants to help at the expense of those people who will die on the roads. 
This Minister is not prepared to look at the evidence which shows very clearly that a lot could be done to improve road safety. Here I hold the evidence. If members look at this front page of the  
New Zealand Herald  
from last week they will see the heading “2 Killed 5 Hurt”. This refers to the same piece of road on the “Holiday Highway” that Mr Joyce will not improve for another 10 or 20 years because he will be focused on the area between Puhoi and Wellsford that will get him to his holiday bach. 
That is the sort of policy we are getting from this Government. It will not lower the blood-alcohol level even though that happens to save lives. It will not invest in improving pieces of roading that are killing people. We get money spent on the rich not on those who will suffer the most: people who are at the bottom of society. That is what separates that Government and that party from this party on this side of the House. This party goes by the evidence does what is right and stands up for those who will be hurt and killed because of crazy policies that this Minister is bringing into this House. 
For that reason I say very forcefully that although Labour supports this legislation and lots of the elements in it there are elements that are seriously lacking and I have outlined some of those today. Thank you.