Beaumont Carol: Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) — Second Reading 
Beaumont Carol: Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) — Second Reading 
[Volume:655;Page:4343] 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
 I follow my colleagues in debating the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4). Interestingly enough listening to Michael Woodhouse then I found that the first part of what I want to say is pretty much the same which is an interesting phenomenon and probably one that does not happen very often in this House. For me this is the first substantive bill that I have been on a select committee to consider. I did not hear the submissions but I was part of the consideration of the submissions. 
As others have said this bill has two main components. There are a number of other smaller matters but the two main components are around enhancing the powers of the police to deal with drug-impaired drivers and around the registration and licensing of motor vehicles particularly in relation to privacy matters. I will primarily focus on the first of those components. The bill has traversed some areas that are quite difficult but very necessary. I think the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee has worked very well through some of those issues. Some of the difficulties have been of a technical nature such as trying to work out how to enable what the committee was trying to achieve particularly with the limits of technology at the moment. The second area was more in the area that Darien Fenton was talking about: how we politically or ethically deal with matters where we start to cross over into areas of human rights for example or possibilities of provisions of this legislation being enforced differentially. So there has been some very robust discussion as has been said. Like Michael Woodhouse I acknowledge the expert advice the select committee received from officials during that process. They have been asked time and again by the committee to consider particular matters and to come back and clarify them for the committee and I think they have done that exceptionally well. 
As my colleague Trevor Mallard has said we want to look at further amendments to this bill because we think that in some areas the legislation could in fact go further. The first of those is the area where it is obvious that somebody is more impaired than is really indicated by the result of the breath test that he or she has taken. They should be able to be further tested both with the impairment and/or blood test for drugs. Secondly where the driver of a car is hospitalised and could currently be subject to a blood test for alcohol we want to look at also blood testing for class A drugs in those circumstances. So amendments will be coming in those areas. 
As others have commented this bill has been some time in gestation. It was introduced by the previous Labour Government and the then Minister of Transport Annette King in October 2007. It was the result of considerable work by campaigns and consultations like the See You There—Safe As campaign and a recognition by the community and the Government of concerns about the threat to the safety of ordinary New Zealanders from drug-driving. At that time National supported and obviously continues to support this work being done and this bill coming to the House. But I think it is a little rich for National members at this stage of proceedings to try to make this out to be their own initiative and one that as Steven Joyce apparently has claimed has been languishing in the too-hard basket. 
As I indicated earlier this is quite a difficult area and quite detailed work has already been done. In March of this year Mr Joyce said that driving under the influence of drugs was a real and understated problem on New Zealand roads. He said: “It is a real concern. Tests done on drivers who have been involved in fatalities show a very significant portion had drugs in their systems. I think it is a big issue that needs to be tackled. Historically it has been in the too hard basket.” Well it was not in the too-hard basket for the last Government and clearly it is not in the too-hard basket now so I think we should acknowledge the work that has gone on here. 
This bill was introduced by Labour because of recognition of the dangers of drug-driving in general but particularly because of the increasing recognition of the menace of P in our society. That really has been part of the background to this legislation. This bill will sit alongside an existing offence under the Land Transport Act of driving while incapable of proper control due to alcohol or drugs. Once this bill has been enacted those two offences will send a very strong and clear message to people that they must not drive under the influence of drugs. The new impairment test will enable police officers to make well-informed decisions about a person’s ability to drive safely and if the person is not safe he or she will not be able to continue. This test is definitely at a different level to the current offence of “being incapable” which has a very high threshold. This bill brings in another offence which will be at a level that is much easier to capture. 
It will however be the case—and we have maintained this throughout the process—that by law evidence of drug use gathered as evidence of a driving offence cannot be used as evidence of any offence under the Misuse of Drugs Act. In considering that provision in the select committee I think it was recognised that the penalties and sanctions under this legislation will be at a similar level anyway so this bill is not going soft on drug use by keeping it as a transport measure. It is really focused on the traffic safety and transport implications of drug-driving. 
My colleague Darien Fenton spent some time talking about Part 2 in terms of some of the specific provisions. I thought I might mention some of the particular provisions to do with drug impairment. Before I do that one thing I thought worthy of mentioning is the commencement date. This was one of the areas where the select committee had some considerable debate. The select committee has recommended “amending the commencement date for the drug-impaired driving provisions in the bill … to the earlier of either a date fixed by an Order in Council or 1 December 2009”. That is quite soon. That will enable in fact one of the things that need to happen which is the training of more police officers to enable them to actually undertake the impairment test. Only trained officers will be able to do that test. Labour members of the select committee were of the view that the commencement date should be sooner than that and that the drug-impaired driving provisions should come into effect when the bill receives Royal assent in order to provide a clear message that as police training proceeds drug-impaired drivers will be subject to the full force of the new law. It would be a staggered implementation because there would be increasing numbers of police able to conduct those tests but none the less it would potentially be earlier than what is provided for here. 
This bill brings in a new duty: a duty not to drive or attempt to drive a motor vehicle while impaired by drink or drugs. The committee considered whether blood samples alone without any evidence of impairment could be sufficient to get people prosecuted for drug impairment but unfortunately as things stand at the moment—and again this is the technical nature I mentioned earlier—we are not in that position. There is plenty of evidence around alcohol that once one reaches a certain level with alcohol one is impaired and that those two things go together. In the area of drugs that is not the case so we had to bring in a provision around an impairment test first. 
One of the areas of some significant debate was whether this legislation could be future-proofed if you like; whether clauses could be put in so that future technology as and when it becomes available could replace the proposed compulsory impairment test. Certainly the Labour members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee were of the view that Parliament is capable of passing legislation that is flexible enough to take advantage of future technology changes using the Order in Council process. Unfortunately the other committee members considered that that was not possible to achieve. 
I thought it might also be worthwhile to mention what the impairment test is given that so much of this provision sits alongside the impairment test. As I mentioned earlier impairment is a lower threshold than the current “incapable of proper control” threshold. It will be determined by a test under the provisions of this bill. The proposed provisions will have the police putting a suspected drugged driver through a roadside test with a number of features. The test will include balance the one-leg stand test; coordination the walk and turn test; and the eye-pupil response.