Twyford Phil: Land Transport (Admissibility of Evidential Breath Tests) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Twyford Phil: Land Transport (Admissibility of Evidential Breath Tests) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 14 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6624. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatu) 
: 
 Labour is supporting this Land Transport (Admissibility of Evidential Breath Tests) Amendment Bill of Scott Simpson’s to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. We are supporting it with a number of reservations. I want to make three points in the 5 minutes that I have tonight. 
The first is that the Attorney-General has raised a number of concerns about the bill. Labour’s view is that unless we feel at the select committee that these concerns have been addressed satisfactorily we will not be supporting the bill’s further progress. The Attorney-General has ruled that the bill is inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act as it erodes the right to be presumed innocent. I want to quote the Attorney-General who says: “the provisions of the Bill are too broad and are not in proportion to the objective. I have no evidence that the number of motorists who now escape responsibility for offending but would be captured by the proposed amendment is significant.” Well that is a pretty serious objection. I would note that Scott Simpson I think has been quoted as saying that he does not know how many people would be captured by the closing of this loophole. In fact I think he has speculated that it might be a handful of people. We would question whether in fact this is a good use of the House’s time to bring a bill like this to the House without that basic groundwork having been done and without some data upon which to base the premise that this bill relies on. 
The Attorney-General also found that the wording “for any reason” would mean that circumstances such as a health professional not being available for example to administer the blood test at the time would be a suitable reason and that does not seem to be the intention of the bill. So that is our first point: the Attorney-General has raised some serious issues both drafting issues and about the data upon which the premise of this bill is based in terms of the number of people who supposedly are evading the law. Those things need to be addressed. 
I should probably have pointed out for the benefit of people listening or watching who were not here for the first couple of speeches on the bill that what this bill aims to do is to tackle the issue of people who are physically unable to give a blood test once they have been stopped for drink-driving who take a breath test and then nominate—as they are able to do under the law—to have a blood test. I think the law allows 10 minutes for the person to make that decision. Once that person nominates that they will have a blood test the evidence of the breathalyser is inadmissible at that point. The problem that the member Scott Simpson is trying to solve with this bill is that there are some people—we do not know how many but there are some—who for whatever reason are physically unable to give a blood sample. They are somehow gaming the system—this is the suggestion—by opting for a blood test thereby making the breathalyser result inadmissible but they are unable then to deliver a blood sample. That is the bill in a nutshell. 
As I have said the Attorney-General has some problems with that and raised the possibility—I think in fact Mike Noon from the Automobile Association raised the possibility—that the police for example could say that they do not have medical staff present and therefore that would render the evidence of the breathalyser inadmissible and the person would get off. So those are some concerns about it. 
The other thing that has to be said in this debate is that there is irony in the fact that a National member would bring to the House this bill which would close a loophole affecting—how many we do not know—possibly a handful of people when this National-led Government has consistently refused to raise the blood-alcohol limit from 0.08 to 0.05— 
Michael Woodhouse 
: That is called a lowering. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: —lowering the limit; thank you to that member—in the face of overwhelming international evidence that 0.05 is the gold standard. That change alone would save up to 30 lives a year but this Government will not do it because of the optics apparently. Thank you.