Mapp Wayne: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Mapp Wayne: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:629;Page:1924] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I have a couple of questions for the Minister in the chair Harry Duynhoven in relation to the commencement date. We are all aware that Parliament is sitting in urgency to deal with this legislation. Both the country and Parliament are well aware of the reasons for that. Some people have been—let us be honest—unjustly deprived of their livelihoods and need to be able to get back into business. Of course they cannot do that until this law takes effect. 
Parliament I would imagine will be passing this law tonight and it comes into effect under clause 2 on receiving the Royal assent. I presume the Governor-General is available—perhaps not tonight but certainly tomorrow—to enable this bill to come into effect on her signature. I would like an assurance from the Minister that that is his intent. Perhaps the Minister might like to comment on that. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: I can give you that assurance—as soon as is possible. And if the Governor-General is here tonight on Thursday we will be asking her to sign it. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: I thank the Minister for that assurance. Therefore I understand people will be able to make their applications say as of next week. One would like to think that the Director of Land Transport would process the relevant ones expeditiously. As my colleague Eric Roy has made very clear those people will have been without income from 16 January to say towards the end of March. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Those who were actually employed as taxi and bus drivers. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: Yes; I say to the Minister that I understand that. One of the interesting issues Mr Roy raised was compensation for that 2-month period. Obviously one cannot drive before one drives so to speak—we cannot retroactively drive because we cannot time travel. Having a retrospective provision could not conceivably change that. So the only way that people can be compensated it seems to me—and it would be a relatively small number of cases; some people have had alternative work or taken a management role etc.—is for the Government in appropriate cases to look at the question of ex gratia payments. That is a sovereign power that the Government has and I realise that it is exercised sparingly but from time to time it is actually exercised. I ask the Government to consider its powers and processes to pay an ex gratia payment in cases of real hardship due to what to be honest was an error of Parliament in passing the original law in the way it was passed. The basic intention of the law was right; there was one particular error which we are now fixing today. 
I want to make one point finally clear. National supports clause 2. We are supporting it because we do want the situation of the drivers who had their licences revoked according to the effect of the law to be fixed. That is our particular concern and we will support the parts of the bill that deal with that particular concern. The parts of the bill that do not deal with that concern we will not support. So I make it clear to the Minister that we will vote for this clause. 
Clause 2 agreed to.