Dunne Peter: Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) — First Reading 
Dunne Peter: Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) — First Reading 
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Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 I want to speak briefly to the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4). This is a difficult but necessary bill. It is difficult because the issues it deals with particularly in regard to drug-impaired drivers are issues that most New Zealanders would agree need to be addressed and most New Zealanders would have some concern about the current situation in regard to that. But at the same time there is this dilemma about how far one intervenes how effective the testing regime might be and whether there are undue implications for the human rights of individuals. 
 I note that according to the explanatory note this bill will contribute to reducing some 300 deaths and 4500 hospitalisations each year up to the year 2010 as part of the Government’s overall Road Safety to 2010 strategy and its policies in regard to harm minimisation in respect of the use of drugs. That is good and worthy but the question we need to focus our attention on and which the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee will want to give particular consideration to will be precisely the regime that is being introduced in regard to the way in which drug-impaired driver tests will take place the possible risk of information that is gathered through those tests being what some people might regard as misused and also how the samples can be obtained and analysed in a way that will provide for much more effective results. 
We have been through many exercises over the years in regard to the testing of alcohol-impaired drivers. We have moved a long way from the days of one simply being asked to walk on a straight line. We then moved to blowing in the bag. We now have sophisticated breath-testers and more sophisticated blood-testing arrangements that flow from those. Each one of those steps has been accompanied by a level of debate and testing before the courts about both the efficacy of the measures being employed and the extent to which the human rights of the individuals concerned are being infringed upon. I suspect we are about to go through something similar in regard to the drug-testing regime that is introduced in this bill. 
I appreciate that what is set out here attempts to mirror to the greatest extent possible the provisions in the legislation relating to the testing of perceived alcohol-impaired drivers and I hope that the reality works out that these two sets of measures are consistent. But there will be difficulties here at one level it seems to me simply because prescription medicines are included—and I think they should be. One cannot talk about prescription alcohol—one is either over the limit or not over the limit in respect of alcohol use. There will be a debate I am sure about people on medication who suddenly find they may be caught by this regime. That is something that I think the select committee will want to give some considerable attention to. 
I note also from previous discussions over the years where matters of drug impairment have been on the agenda that some of the toxicology and pharmacology issues involved in regard to drugs are going to have a different lifespan than alcohol—for instance the fact that there can be traces in the bloodstream of certain drugs for long periods of time and the implications that may have for a testing regime. So they are issues that the select committee will need to pay some considerable attention to—to get expert medical and professional advice on then to ensure the legislation that emerges as a result deals with those concerns. 
I note that from towards the end of the explanatory note there has been considerable consultation so far with a wide range of agencies that might be presumed to have some expertise in this area and one hopes therefore that the bill largely reflects their considered advice and that some of the concerns I have been expressing have either been considered already or have been mitigated in the drafting of the legislation. But there will be many groups in the community with an interest in this who will want to have their say both as to whether they regard the regime being applied here as too rigorous or insufficiently rigorous whether they think the safeguards are adequate or inadequate and whether they even think that the issues being addressed here are those that are worthy of consideration. 
The second part of the bill as the previous speaker mentioned relates to the register of motor vehicles. I do not want to say too much about this other than to observe that this has also been an area of some considerable attention over the years. The steps that were taken by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs in the late 1980s and early 1990s to provide for people to be able to check previous ownership arrangements for vehicles was a dramatic step forward at that time. It was not uncommon for people to suddenly find upon the purchase of a second-hand vehicle for instance that they had also incurred a second-hand debt. It seems to me from a quick read of the provisions in this section of this particular bill that it seeks to update and modernise many of those provisions with a view to also making it a little easier to check whether vehicles have been either misappropriated or are being used in a way that as the law says here could threaten the security of New Zealand. 
These are going to be difficult issues in themselves to resolve but I think we are in an environment now where the public is more accepting of these sorts of issues being considered and some restraints being applied that they may not have previously considered were appropriate because of the greater public interest. I note that there are a variety of provisions relating to number plates. I think that on the face of it although they look tedious they are necessary in terms of public protection against both fraud and misuse. On the whole it seems to me that this bill which is essentially a technical piece of legislation despite some of its potential pitfalls is a positive step forward. We are certainly prepared to support it going to a select committee. We hope that the committee does take the opportunity to hear the specialist evidence and to make recommendations for change where it considers this might be necessary so that we end up with legislation that is not just worthy in its intent but viable in its practice.