Joyce Steven: Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) — Third Reading 
Joyce Steven: Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) — Third Reading 
[Volume:655;Page:4599] 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 I move  
That the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) be now read a third time 
. I thank members and officials for their work on this bill. It has been given a thorough examination and the amendments have made a good bill better. 
This bill deals with three quite separate but in their own way important land transport matters. They concern new powers to deal with the problem of drug-impaired drivers on our roads; a comprehensive rewrite of vehicle registration and licensing laws including a new system for managing the release of vehicle owners’ names and addresses; and the continuation in force pending further reforms of legislation that amongst other things empowers local authorities to undertake parking and bus-lane enforcement and to make traffic by-laws. 
People who drive while their judgment and reactions are impaired by drugs—and by that I mean both controlled drugs and prescription medicines—are a danger to themselves and to others. This bill aims to reduce this risk by creating an offence of driving while impaired and with evidence in the bloodstream of a controlled drug or a prescription medicine and by empowering police to determine whether a driver is impaired by means of a compulsory impairment test. If this test shows that the driver is impaired it will be followed by a blood test to determine whether drugs are present. 
Only recently drug researchers at Massey University announced the findings of the latest in a series of illicit drug monitoring reports. It was found that 90 percent of P users 62 percent of Ecstasy users and 90 percent of injecting - drug users surveyed had driven under the influence of a drug other than alcohol in the past 6 months. Many reported driving too fast losing concentration losing their temper at another driver driving through a red light and nearly hitting something while driving under the influence of a drug. An Institute of Environmental Science and Research deceased driver survey conducted between 2004 and 2008 found that 257 of the 826 deceased drivers or nearly a third had cannabis in their system. Those people may have survived if they had not mixed cannabis use with driving. These are very disturbing statistics. This bill will provide police with additional tools to get drivers impaired by drugs off the roads before they add to the death toll and the injury toll on our roads. 
This bill was introduced by the previous Government back in 2007 and I give it due credit for that. I am proud to bring this bill through for its Committee stage and third reading within 6 months of the new Government being sworn in. 
I acknowledge the spirit of bipartisanship in which the House dealt with the bill during the Committee stage last week. Discussions with the Hon Trevor Mallard led to the bill being amended to strengthen its anti-drugs message. The amendment deals with the issue of drugged drivers who are injured or otherwise incapacitated and who cannot undertake the impairment test and thus who could not be charged with the new drug-impaired driving offence. The amendment enables drugged drivers to be charged with another new offence—that of driving with class A drugs such as P in the bloodstream—without the need for an impairment test when injury prevents it. 
I can assure members that we are well aware that this bill is just the first step in dealing with the drug-driving problem. When a practical affordable drug-testing device that can produce results that can stand up in court becomes available then I will be very happy to bring legislation to the House to enable it to be used as an enforcement tool. 
I would like to respond to media articles on Monday that queried why the bill does not cover Valium and related drugs known collectively as benzodiazepines. Given that the bill has been in the public domain for the best part of 2 years I am only sorry that this issue was raised after the Committee stage was completed last week. I am advised that when the previous Government had the bill drafted in 2007 the professional medical advice was that these drugs should not be included. That advice had not been challenged until the weekend. I am not a pharmacist but based on the evidence I have seen in the past 24 hours I believe that these drugs should be considered for inclusion in this legislation. I have officials working on this matter now as a matter of priority. If their advice supports the inclusion of benzodiazepines I will write to all political parties and ask for their support for a special amendment to that effect before the legislation comes into force which is currently scheduled for 1 December. I know that the Green Party in particular is keen on including benzodiazepines in the legislation and I thank Metiria Turei for her work and support since this matter was brought to light over the weekend and on Monday. 
I stress again and I think that this point was made by members on both sides of the House during the Committee stage that this bill is a first step towards tackling the problem of drugged drivers on our roads. No doubt more issues will come to light as time passes and we will deal with them in a measured way as they arise. 
I turn now to the motor vehicles register. Currently any person may obtain the name and address of a vehicle owner simply by quoting a plate number. A person who complained to the New Zealand Transport Agency about this said: “I might as well have my name and address stencilled on the back of my car.” Some disturbing evidence of harassment was reported to the select committee and mass-marketing campaigns using names and addresses have been sourced from the motor vehicles register. This bill will not ban the release of names and addresses from the motor vehicles register; instead it will enable the public interest to be balanced against privacy concerns. Other reforms implemented in this bill are powers to deal with vehicles where the owner’s identity is unknown free competition in the marketing of personalised plates and empowering the registrar to require that mopeds are inspected prior to registration in order to deal with concerns about the current law which allows unsafe machines sold by unscrupulous traders to be used without any safety inspection. 
Finally the Transport Act 1962 which contains the traffic enforcement and management powers of local authorities expires at the end of this month. New legislation is not yet ready and the Transport Act needs to be extended in the meantime. Once it is passed this legislation will achieve that. 
This bill will make a significant contribution to road safety by getting drug-impaired drivers off the roads. It will contribute to vehicle owners’ peace of mind by reducing the opportunity for harassment or worse through the uncontrolled release of name and address details to anybody who asks for them. Finally the bill maintains in place various local authority traffic powers pending a wider reform. I commend this bill to the House.