Bridges SimonHon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Transport): It is a great pleasure to take a call on this and to just set a few things on the record for starters. Firstly I must thank the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee for its diligence on this bill. I think it is a very significant bill. As I say I think the changes to alcohol interlocks are entirely right. I am sure they will have widespread support amongst the Committee. I think the fare evasion provisions again are important particularly in Auckland where we are starting to see this emerging. It has been happening for some time and certainly is a growing issue. They will be helpful provisions and will empower enforcement officers to require passengers to show evidence they have paid the fare and to provide their contact details if they do not. The fleeing driver provisions—again I think we will see widespread support as well as for the heavy vehicle regulations and the like. I think for my part we are focusing on the most significant part of the bill in the sense that it is the newest. It is the most interesting of the provisions and that is in relation to some small passenger services. I can say personally that I am proud of these provisions. I think this is going to be a very significant reform that will make an incredibly positive difference to broadly the small passenger services area—taxis and private carriage and the shuttles and so on as well. I say that because really what they do is they lower the compliance they level the playing field and they bring us into a world that is far different from the one in the 1980s when what we had of course was not even big brick cellphones really. I mean they might just have been on the scene but we certainly did not have these smartphones and all that technology and innovation have put before us today.Ultimately what the bill is going to do is provide for much greater service to consumers—to the people of New Zealand—and that has got to be a good thing. There will be more competition more service more choice and that choice I think by lowering the compliance is going to result in an array of different services. I think you will still see traditional taxis that are identical to what we have today. You will walk out of an airport you will get out on a rank and you will see exactly what we see now—the branded car with the meter the camera and all those things. People will still do that and that will be a strong way of doing it. But I think you will also see different models where people will use their phone and they will see a different range of services. If they want the cheaper option to get somewhere quickly which might be the mum with her shopping or if they want to go sharing—perhaps the university student will be getting in with strangers or other university students in a ride-sharing situation—this bill is going to be incredibly enabling for all that. So it will be empowering for consumers and I think it will also see a reduction in congestion over time. I have talked about electric vehicles autonomous vehicles all these things—I think this area of ride sharing is the most significant in the short to medium term.I just want to address a couple of the concerns that I have heard from members that I think it is valid to raise. Firstly the one by Michael Wood about mopeds—it is good to hear his personal history when it comes to mopeds. The definition of moped in regard to the maximum speed limit of 50 kilometres is actually in the Act now so that is the current situation and the changed definition is designed to better include three-wheeler mopeds. I also want to address head-on what I think is a valid concern about the disability sector and about Braille that we have heard. I can understand the concerns being raised but what I heard in the lead-up to the bill and what Craig Foss the then Minister heard at quite a number of meetings was that this was a sector the disability sector for which the small passenger services sector was really underperforming. They do not see the status quo today—well they might say it is just passing but not good enough.What has happened is that technology has changed everything. We have a situation now where technology through apps through different credit cards and payment forms provides every bit the same—actually much more—assurance for a disabled person in a taxi or in a private hire vehicle as they could have had before. It allows them of course through various apps with talking technologies etc. etc.—there is so much happening in this area—to have much better direct communication with operators and much better direct assurance about the operators and whom they are getting in advance records of the trips and all of these things than they ever could have had with the tatty piece of paper and the compliance cost on regulators that the Braille signage provides at the moment. So I think this is the right thing to do: to strip away compliance costs while actually ensuring as we know that the technology and innovation provide other different—and I believe much better stronger—safety assurances for disabled folk who are using these sorts of services. This is a system I repeat that is going to be enabling more service more consumer choice more technology and innovation that is better.I also give this guarantee to the sector. At the moment Total Mobility is the service that provides for them in this area and provides subsidy effectively for their services. I believe that this regime is going to show much more service for them some of it much cheaper which is something that they have complained about in the past. But if we see any sort of reduction in service I will as Minister of Transport in a newly constructed National Government—or the National Government will—up the Total Mobility subsidy. I will up the amount we are putting in if we find that the system is not working as it should. I know that it will though. I feel very strongly that what we are doing here is a step forward. I feel that in fact technology and innovation and the enabling that we are allowing here for the apps and so on which at the moment they cannot do properly legally under the current regime—which will pass when this bill is passed—will allow for much better assurance not less for the disabled sector in New Zealand.