Nash Stuart: Road User Charges Bill — In Committee 
Nash Stuart: Road User Charges Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:676;Page:21784] 
STUART NASH (Labour) 
: 
 Mr O’Connor the previous speaker on the Road User Charges Bill brings up a very good point and I would like to reiterate it a little bit more. He was talking about Part 4 “Enforcement and other matters” and particularly clause 73 “Offence relating to disclosing information acquired during inspection of records or search”. Clause 73(1) says: “A person commits an offence if the person except in the performance of the person’s duties knowingly discloses any information acquired during—(a) an inspection of records …” or an authorised search. 
There are two things here that strike me. First of all the fine for an individual is $25000. That is a lot of money; of that there is no doubt. For a corporate it is $100000. But to take Mr O’Connor’s point a step further I would have thought that a clause like this may in fact stop people from coming forward and saying: “Shivers! Look OK I admit I have done wrong here”— 
Darien Fenton 
: Shivers! 
STUART NASH 
: —shivers—“I have committed an offence under this Act. I am really sorry. Let me cough up pay the charges and let us get on with it.” With that sort of regime there is a bit of scope and we talked about it in Part 2 I think it was where the road-user charges inspector had the ability to waive the fee. But what it is saying here is that if a person knowingly discloses information during the course of an authorised search or an inspection then he or she is liable for a fine of $25000 and I would have thought that that is a very good incentive to actually keep quiet—zip up shut up. I would have thought that having this provision in place would discourage people from owning up. 
There are a couple of other points I would like to make. Clause 71 lays out a defence for a person caught avoiding these road-user charges. I agree with subclauses (1) and (2) but subclause (3) is quite interesting. It says: “It is a defence in proceedings for an offence of operating a RUC vehicle without a properly working distance recorder … if a defendant proves that—… (c) a properly working distance recorder was fitted to the RUC vehicle or the distance recorder fitted to the RUC vehicle was repaired as soon as practicable after the commission of an alleged offence.” Again “as soon as practicable” is one of these very subjective tests that is hard to measure. 
I am wondering whether the Associate Minister of Transport will be answering these questions because I can see he is busy reading about Auckland manufacturing and that it is probably slowing down. Many of us who work in the provinces and the rural sector know that these trucks are on the road 24/7. The drivers of course change but these trucks— 
Darien Fenton 
: They work long hours. 
STUART NASH 
: Yes the truck drivers work long hours but these trucks are a piece of machinery and people have to get a return on their investment. So what does “as soon as practicable” mean? I suspect that those words may end up being defined by the court if there is a fine of $25000 for an individual or $100000 for a corporation. If a logging truck is coming out of Wairoa and Napier Road it is going 24/7 so is “as soon as practicable” the next time the driver stops for petrol or the Sunday after the offence is committed or is it the 20th of the month when people stop to pay their bills? I am not sure what “as soon as practicable” means in that context. I am sure that smart lawyers will probably be able to wheedle their way through that. 
My other point relates to clause 72 “Power to issue search warrant in respect of alleged offence”. That is pretty wide. It relates to when an offence has been committed and that provision makes sense. It relates to when an offence is suspected to have been committed. If there is good suspicion then a warrant will be issued. I understand that. But it also relates to when an offence “is believed to be intended to be committed.” So road-user charges collectors could get a search warrant if they believe that an offence is intended to be committed. 
That is a pretty wide definition I would have thought. I would say that it puts a lot of pressure on a defendant and it is a wide scope for any collectors of road-user charges. All they have to say is: “I believe that an offence is intended to be committed.” and if asked: “How can you prove that Mr RUC Inspector?” they need only say: “I believe that an offence is intended to be committed because I saw him driving and I thought that the truck had been on the road too many times and the driver could not have stopped because it was not practically possible for him to have done this.”