Woodhouse Michael: Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) — In Committee 
Woodhouse Michael: Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) — In Committee 
[Volume:655;Page:4475] 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 I very much appreciate being able to take a call on Part 1 of the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4). I add my voice to the acknowledgments of the excellent work done by the members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. Although I mentioned it yesterday I also want to congratulate and acknowledge the officials who helped the committee through some quite complex aspects of the law as it related to the bill as well as some questions we were asking about the Misuse of Drugs Act and how the two married together. 
It struck me during that process that we were probably asking a little bit too much of this bill in our consideration. I wonder whether we were thinking about whether the bill sends a message that it is wrong to take drugs and drive or that it is wrong to take drugs at all. In that respect Mr Davis and Mr Peachey provided some very compelling new information about the impact of drugs on their communities and particularly on the schools that they led. But fundamentally this bill is about road safety—keeping us safe on the roads. Yet the question of whether there was sufficient correlation between the Misuse of Drugs Act and this bill continued to underscore the things we were dealing with. 
Mr Mallard brought to the Committee the issue of whether somebody who has been in an accident and gone to hospital should have blood taken for the purposes of evidential examination for drugs and that is a very good issue to raise. We discussed it quite robustly and there were some very good reasons both for and against doing it. I think the proposed amendment put forward during the Committee stage will achieve what I think is a satisfactory compromise between the two positions—that it should not be done and that it should. Someone crashing a car and looking a bit glazed might be prima facie evidence of some form of impairment and if there is a very good context to that I think that giving the police the discretion to test for class A drugs is a very good compromise. I also say “Well done!” to the Minister of Transport for listening very carefully to the reasoned arguments that were put forward and for providing the amendment that will see that occur. 
I want to touch on the issues that Mr Mallard raised with regard to future-proofing the legislation and I add my voice to what Tau Henare was saying. We had a very good discussion on whether an Order in Council or some kind of regulatory provision would enable the technology to be used as it comes online. This discussion was more difficult in substance than it appeared on the face of it. The technology at the moment is a very very long way from enabling that to occur. We heard scientists from the Institute of Environmental Science and Research say that the swab that presently can be taken—to be processed by the company in Christchurch—simply will not detect some of the drugs that we are ruling out. It will not catch cannabis for example because the atomic weight of cannabis is much larger than the existing test is able to deal with. The handheld device is not easily used and so on. So I think there are very good reasons for not doing that. But I think it was a worthwhile discussion. We have gone on a journey and we have come back to the point where we started. I look forward to watching with interest how that matter evolves. 
I think we are all agreed that as a result of the passage of this legislation our roads will be safer. So I offer my congratulations to the committee I thank the officials and I say “Well done!” to the Minister of Transport. I support this part. Thank you.