Bridges SimonHon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Transport): I have some regard for Denis O'Rourke. On some of the more legal bills I think he gives a good perspective on things and that is excellent. But that was a ridiculous speech. It was a ridiculous speech because it wants to take us back to the 1960s or 1970s and to sort of blindfold ourselves to the technology and innovation that is happening. He said in his contribution that New Zealand is not ready for Uber drivers. Well I have got a little secret. It is a dirty little secret for the member: they are here in their thousands. Tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders use them Mr O'Rourke and that is the way it goes.Be very clear though: this bill is not for Uber. It is not the Uber bill. This bill is for a lower-compliance level playing field that brings competition to the likes of Uber actually. I will tell you what a company that excites me much more than Uber is a company called Lyft which we see in the US. Actually over half of its trips these days involve more than one stranger passenger. It is effectively doing sharing better than anyone I have heard of. It is particularly strong in American university towns. Think about that and about the congestion benefits it would have if in our bigger centres we saw that sort of technology and innovation—people getting into cars with others rather than the 1.2 people per average or something that we seem to have at the moment in our vehicles on our highways and on our arterial roads. It would make a really big difference indeed and that is what excites me about this bill. It is the competition and it is the choice that New Zealanders will have.It will not be just Uber; I think it will be players like Lyft and I think there will also be significant indigenous players. We are already seeing them. Here in Wellington there is Chariot. I know there are others—actually if I had gone and got a list I could have reeled a few of them off for you—who are wanting to play in this space and are waiting for this law.Sue Moroney: If they are paying their taxes.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: It will not happen overnight but over time you will see more of this. Sue Moroney mentions taxis. Actually I am with her inasmuch as I know that the Blue Bubble cabs and the others will in very much a horses for courses" way—Iain Lees-Galloway: Taxes not taxis.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well she is obsessed. She is obsessed with that. That actually has absolutely nothing to do with this bill but that is the way that Sue rolls. Taxis will also I think offer their traditional services and they will also offer the app-based kind of services. They may do a bit of both from the same car and I welcome all of that innovation.Sue Moroney said this bill deregulates. Well it does and I am proud of that. Actually if you look at the deregulation it removes a number of unnecessary current regulatory requirements that impose costs on operators. That is what National is about. We believe in that and we think it is good for New Zealanders to do that. We are reducing the mandatory signage—I have talked about that. I have addressed the Braille concerns from the Government's perspective.It removes requirements such as an area knowledge certificate—I mean why you would have that today when every taxi driver I ever get in with now does not have the knowledge and actually goes off the GPS is beyond me; the full licence test every 5 years because that is unnecessary and they get the test when they start; the P endorsement course of course which we are doing away with but keeping the P endorsement which is important and I will come back to it; belonging to an approved taxi organisation; providing a small passenger service 24 hours per day 7 days per week; holding a certificate of knowledge of law and practice; and monitoring of driver panic alarms in taxis from a fixed location 24 hours per day 7 days per week. We are doing away with a lot of compliance.Sue Moroney also said something else that I think is interesting and is important. That is that we need to make sure when we deregulate that we do not make mistakes and that we do ensure that safety is paramount. This bill does that. That is because contrary to submissions that I know the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee heard we have kept the P endorsement. We want to make sure and we will continue to ensure that people who drive others in a commercial service have the police checks have the good-character checks have the medical assessments and so on. It will be at a dramatically reduced cost because we want to democratise what we are doing in this area but that P endorsement will still be there and that is very important.I think it is also very important to place on the record what is happening with the in-vehicle camera because there is a lot of misunderstanding in that area. Let me briefly detail that. There is still a requirement for in-vehicle cameras in all of the 18 largest centres in New Zealand just as there was. What is also true is that there is an exemption process there where the small passenger service can and indeed must to meet the exemption requirement provide services only to registered passengers.So where the provider can make quite clear and satisfy the New Zealand Transport Agency that in advance of—let us take the case that we have heard from Sue Moroney—that impaired person getting in the vehicle he or she knows in advance who the driver is and they know everything about them and their company. They have probably used the company before because they have it all there. Equally from the driver's safety perspective they know that it is Sarah Jones whom they are picking up. They have her details—actually they will have her bank details and so on. I would argue that that is actually a much more effective safety deterrent and way of doing things than the in-vehicle camera in terms of the assurances that it provides before the trip and during the trip.Also they will need to have recording devices because they will need to be able to make available and retain specified information for at least 168 hours after a trip. They will be able to detail where the trip has been—effectively GPS information; there is the power of technology now to do these things. They will need to be able to say when it was at X point and when it then reached Y point. These are requirements that in fact drivers do not need to provide today so they are additional and different safety assurances from the in-vehicle camera but I think the international experience is showing that they are every bit as strong as the in-vehicle camera.So it will be a situation where in the 18 biggest centres drivers will either have to provide the in-vehicle cameras and services or there will need to be the registration and the information that is kept for a period of time."