Lees-Galloway Iain: Land Transport Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: Land Transport Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 03 December 2013. Volume:695;Page:15134. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): Labour supports the Land Transport Amendment Bill and we do look forward to the consideration of it at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. We anticipate that there will be significant public interest in this legislation not just from people who are interested specifically in road safety but also from people who have an interest in public health and the impact of alcohol and other substances on the health and well-being of New Zealanders. In fact there was some discussion at the Health Committee about whether we ought to ask for this bill to be considered at the Health Committee. That was a suggestion made by Kevin Hague because of the wider health implications of this legislation. I am sure that will be a significant aspect of the conversation that will be had at the select committee.We support this legislation because alcohol is one of the leading contributors to death on our roads if not the leading contributor to death on our roads. So far this year 231people have died on New Zealand roads. If the statistics that have been gathered in recent years are borne out when there is close examination of those numbers then around 80 of those people will have been killed where the accident is attributable to alcohol and/or other intoxicating substances. Over the years although we have been successful in reducing the overall road toll—with one unfortunate blip last year but generally the trend is heading downwards—what we have not been able to do is reduce the impact of alcohol and substance use on the road toll. In fact back in 2008 33.1 percent of all road deaths were attributable to alcohol and/or drugs. Last year in 2012 33.8 percent were attributable to alcohol and/or drugs. In the intervening years the percentage has gone up and it has gone down but it has generally sat around the mid-30s. Slightly above a third of all accidents are caused by alcohol and/or drugs.It is for that reason I think that the police came to Parliament and said that the single most impactful thing that Parliament could do to reduce the road toll would be to reduce the drink-driving limit. It has been clear for a number of years that that is the course of action that Parliament needs to take. Unfortunately however the Government has sat on this bill for far too long. It was back in 2009 that Steven Joyce as the transport Minister at the time actually looked like he was about to act. It looked like Cabinet was very very close to introducing legislation that would do exactly what this legislation does but for some reason Steven Joyce and the National Cabinet decided not to act. It may have been something to do with polling or it may have been something to do with the fact that they wanted to push the issue past the last election. We cannot really be sure what it was that caused them to fail to act but what we do know is this: it certainly was not public opinion. Public opinion has been behind this measure for a number of years now. And it certainly was not the evidence because the evidence gathered overseas where other jurisdictions are years ahead of New Zealand is that lowering the drink-driving limit has a tangible and fast impact on the road toll. So public opinion supported this measure and the data supported it yet for some reason the National Government did not support it. And frankly we can only speculate about why that was.This legislation does something a little bit different from what the Labour Party has been proposing for a number of years. Back in 2009 when Steven Joyce failed to act our then transport spokesperson Darren Hughes introduced a member’s bill to the ballot that would have taken the action that the Government failed to take. That member’s bill was eventually passed to me in my roles as transport spokesperson and associate health spokesperson and I was lucky enough to have it drawn from the ballot. I also attempted to have the Alcohol Reform Bill amended as another mechanism to make this change. The Government voted against that at the time but once the member’s bill drafted by the Labour Party was pulled from the ballot then all of a sudden the measure became a priority. The reason for that of course is that it had parliamentary support. The public were behind it the data supported it and then Parliament was going to act with or without the National Party—with or without the Government. It is nice to be able to have an influence over the Government from the Opposition benches. I am pleased to say that knowing that Parliament was going to act with or without it inspired the National Government after 4 long years of considering this topic to finally do the right thing.But this bill is different from what the Labour Party originally suggested. It introduces fines and demerit points for being over 0.05 but under 0.08. We will support that notion going to the select committee. We want to hear what the evidence tells us. We know that jurisdictions overseas have taken both approaches either simply reducing the limit and making it a criminal offence to be over 0.05 or having a series of fines and demerit points as a way of deterring people from becoming intoxicated and then getting behind the wheel. We want to see what the evidence says around that but I want peopleto understand that driving over 0.05 is not a minor thing. It should not be a minor offence regardless of whether it ends up being an infringement offence or a criminal offence. Driving at 0.05 or more increases the risk of being involved in a fatal accident by 5.8 times over someone who is driving at zero with no alcohol—a risk 5.8 times greater if you are driving at 0.05. If you are driving at 0.08 then there is a 16.5 times increased risk of being involved in a fatal accident. What is more that not only increases your likelihood of being involved in an accident but increases the severity of the accident as well. Twelve percent of minor injury crashes are attributable to alcohol 21 percent of serious injury crashes are attributable to alcohol and as I said before 34 percent of accidents where somebody is killed are attributable to alcohol. So alcohol not only increases the likelihood that an accident will occur but increases the likelihood that that accident will be more severe and will result in serious injury or death.This is not a minor topic and it should not have been an issue on which the Government preferred to put some sort of political expediency ahead of doing the right thing back in 2009 when it had the data. New Zealand has been slow to act on this issue. Just 16 countries including New Zealand still have a 0.08 limit. The vast majority—39 countries—have a 0.05 limit. A significant number of countries actually have a lower limit than that. New Zealand is out of step. We are behind and it is a tragedy that we have taken 4 years more than we needed to in order to pass this legislation.Three hundred and thirty-six people died on our roads in 2008; 121 of those were attributable to alcohol. The numbers of deaths attributable to alcohol were 140 in 2009 144 in 2010 87 in 2011 and 104 in 2012. Those numbers could have been reduced if the Government had been prepared to act and that is the great tragedy. But we do support these moves. We do want to have the debate about the differences of opinion between the two different approaches that the Government and the Opposition have been proposing. We look forward to the passage of this bill through the House and we look forward to this change being made by the middle of next year at the latest because this is something that New Zealand desperately needs.