Adams Paul: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Adams Paul: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
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PAUL ADAMS (United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future which will also support the Land Transport Amendment Bill. I also was able to sit at various meetings of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee as it was considering the bill under the able chairmanship of Mark Gosche. It was pleasing as other members have already said that there was unity across all the parties that the issues we were dealing with in the legislation were important. It was great to see the cooperation as the members discussed rationally issues that were sometimes fairly hot and contentious. 
One of the first things to be touched on was the provisions with regard to drink-driving—the “three strikes and you’re out” approach. First-time offenders face just the current court-imposed penalties but the legislation recognises the challenges we face with drunken drivers on the road. 
It is ironic that we want to get drunk drivers off the road and we are also dealing with the taxi industry. Taxis are often the very method used by people who have the common sense to realise that they have had a little bit too much to drink. As Deborah Coddington said that especially applies to young ladies. We are putting into place measures that mean that hopefully the taxi company will be interested only in taking them from their point of pickup to their home. Unfortunately even recently we have seen examples again on our roads where the taxi industry has failed in its choice of drivers and there has been inappropriate behaviour from some taxi-drivers. This legislation will go a long way—hopefully all the way—to rectify those problems. At one stage the select committee looked at putting a blanket ban on drivers who had serious convictions but I see the bill has been amended so that in certain cases there will be a right of appeal for those with minor convictions. I think that is fair. We have to accept that after a period of 10 years some people have definitely turned their lives round. So there will be a way that they can appeal if they have behaved well over a long period of years. 
I know that the disabilities industry welcomes the recommendation to put Braille identification in taxis for blind people. Of course as Deborah Coddington said one cannot necessarily pick up from the colours of the car which taxi company the car one is hopping into belongs to. That is even worse for blind people; they have no idea what company it is. Now all the companies will have to have Braille identification and blind people will be able to pick up which taxi company they are with the name of the driver and what the cab number is. I think that is a step forward. It is definitely a progressive step indeed. 
Another part of the legislation that has been altered is that police are now able to serve at the roadside a notice of licence suspension. I had thought they were always able to do so and was surprised to learn that they could not. Previously they had to try to catch people at home if their demerit points had got over 100; they had to find those people who had often moved flats or were not at home. But now if someone is picked up on the road for any offence—it may just be that the brake lights are not working—and the police discover that the person has exceeded 100 demerit points they will be able to serve a notice of licence suspension on the roadside and that driver will be taken off the road. 
 United Future raised the issue of excessively noisy vehicles. That is a particular problem in some of our tourism spots. For example in Larry Baldock’s area Tauranga there is a problem with people who in the later hours of night when tourists who have arrived in the country are trying to sleep use excessively noisy vehicles. It may not necessarily be the vehicle itself that is noisy; maybe the noise is from the tyres the stereo or whatever. But people are being kept awake at night and tourists are in some cases avoiding certain spots because of the noise level. I welcome discussion in the Committee stage about demerit points now being able to be issued to people who offend in such cases. 
Another point that has been discussed relates to the passenger service licence for courtesy buses. That is an interesting issue to talk through. Yes service industries use courtesy buses—we think of RSAs and those types of institutions that have courtesy vehicles that take people home or pick them up to bring them to the club for a few drinks—but it is more wide ranging than that. Sports clubs use them. There are groups that care for children after school that have courtesy vehicles to pick up children and bring them to after-school care clubs or to places where they can do their homework etc. They are providing a service. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Pick it up you’re losing the audience. 
PAUL ADAMS 
: I am sorry. Maurice Williamson is really wanting to wind everything up. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Get a bit of excitement. 
PAUL ADAMS 
: I ask Mr Williamson how we can be excited about courtesy buses. These sorts of things need to be worked through. At the moment as Deborah Coddington said such groups will be exempted. 
I also welcome the improvement—and I say to Maurice Williamson that I think it is the major one—to the logbook system. I think logbooks are essential; they have done a lot to bring safety to the industry. Now as we move into the electronic age we find that a lot of the more modern taxi companies run electronic logbooks that cannot be fiddled like a manual logbook can yet drivers have had to run the two in conjunction with each other. Now we have released the courier industry in relation to lighter vehicles from having to have a logbook. That will stop a lot of paperwork and effort. It will be interesting to see whether the industry handles that responsibly or whether we run into challenges with an industry that has been given the freedom to run without logbooks. Only time will tell. 
United Future supports this legislation and I have no doubt that my colleague Larry Baldock who is our transport spokesperson will add additional stuff as we go into the Committee stage.