Duynhoven Harry: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Duynhoven Harry: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:629;Page:1939] 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Minister for Transport Safety) 
: 
 I thank members for the strong interest in this debate at this time of night. It seems that some of the members involved in this debate though have no clue in the wide world how the current licensing system works for taxi and bus drivers. If under the legislation we pass this evening a bus or taxi driver is approved to apply again that does not make that particular applicant automatically a driver. The first thing that any bus or taxi driver who has what is called a P endorsement—that addition to his or her licence—has to pass is what is called a fit and proper person test. The Director of Land Transport is the person who is responsible for ensuring that the people entering the industry are rightfully in the industry. 
There are people who have a criminal history from a previous time and that is what this debate has been about. It has been about how Parliament in the best efforts we can make can try to tidy up the industry for the future. As part of a much larger piece of legislation Parliament and the select committee inadvertently allowed a problem to go forward. When that problem was first identified to me late last year I simply said: “Hang on there is a mess here; how do we fix it?”. I got officials in the Minister of Transport and I both asked for a report on the issue and in the middle of December we got a report that said yes there was definitely an issue. 
The reason that it was raised with me was that people were starting to get letters from Land Transport New Zealand saying they would need to take some legal advice because they were among the people affected by that legislation. Those people were all sexual offenders but as we have since heard in the media and elsewhere and in this House some of those sexual offenders had no victim in that the partner in the sexual activity had been usually a girlfriend who was slightly younger and below the age of 16 years. In some cases that couple 40 years later are happily married and have been in the bus industry or taxi industry for 30 or 40 years and in some cases they are the owner and the wife of the owner or the joint owners of a bus or taxi company. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Yes we support them. It’s not a problem. 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: The Opposition member Dr Wayne Mapp says yes National supports them—no problem. But I tell Dr Mapp that the problem is that this is about justice. It is not about some arcane sort of numbers thing; it is about justice for individuals and about having an industry that is safe for the customers of that industry. [ 
Interruption 
] I say to members if they are prepared to listen that many members rang me after this issue got publicity and when I got officials in late in December—one of the officials here will be able to tell me the date but I think it was around the 20th or 21st of December—we looked at ways of trying to fix it. I suggested all sorts of ways to try to fix the issue for those considered worthy of remaining in the taxi or bus industries and we found that in the words of one of the officials the legislation passed by Parliament last year was more watertight than a snapper. The end result was that the only way to fix it was by legislation. Having got that advice I immediately wrote to the Prime Minister to say we had a problem and would need to fix it. The Minister of the day who put that legislation before the House the select committee and Parliament did not for a moment I think believe we would be in the position we are now in. What has happened— 
David Bennett 
: Oh that’s not so. 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: No I can assure the member that members of the select committee whom I talked to over the January period said to me that this was unexpected. 
We do not have a situation where whatever we do in the House tonight automatically sees those people become taxi or bus drivers; once they have applied to the Director of Land Transport they have to go through a process and the very first consideration is the safety of the public. Nobody gets his or her P endorsement without that being the first consideration. 
Whether the penalty was a fine a prison sentence time in borstal or licence suspension because the under-age sex had occurred in the back of a car is a factor that seems to have been missed out of this argument. The National Party apparently supports an incompetent axe murderer who currently is in the industry but who had a massive prison sentence for grievous bodily harm attempted murder or something else remaining in the industry without censure but says that a young man who when he was aged 17 and his girlfriend was 15½ had a bit of a rush of blood to the head got caught having under-age sex and was penalised should not be in the industry. A National member brought one case to me asking for help. That particular person had had 1 month in prison. National members are saying that a failed axe murderer who is currently in the industry should be allowed to carry on but a person who with his consenting girlfriend had under-age sex and wound up being convicted and sentenced to 1 month in prison should not be allowed to be in the industry. 
That is illogical nonsense. That is precisely why I have put up a Supplementary Order Paper to sort this thing out. I hope members will agree to that Supplementary Order Paper and I hope they will also consider Mr Anderton’s Supplementary Order Paper positively. It is important to look at what those Supplementary Order Papers do. The future application is important because why should we allow certain people in an industry now and say we will have a different standard for such people in the future? If we go ahead with the legislation as it currently sits someone in the industry right now who had a significant prison term but who is approved to drive because he or she has proven in his or her subsequent life to be a fit person will be allowed to continue in the industry but in the future a person with a prison sentence no matter how small will not be allowed into the industry no matter what the crime was. 
That is the position of the National Party. It is not logical in any way shape or form. I ask the National Party especially the members who have brought cases to me—some of whom will not know what penalty was incurred by the person they have asked me to intervene on behalf of—to consider seriously what they are doing. They should put their party politics to one side and look at justice.