O'Rourke Denis: Land Transport (Speed Limits Validation and Other Matters) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Land Transport (Speed Limits Validation and Other Matters) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 21 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5136. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First):I notice that there are four reasons given for urgency on this matter. One relates to the risk to road safety. Obviously people if they believe that the speed limits posted are not valid may decide to speed but it is not just that; it is the fact that people will be uncertain about what in fact the speed limits are if they have not been reviewed as required. Secondly it has been said that there would be risks to people’s individual rights and that is true too but the real truth here is that it would compromise the whole demerit system if this defect is not rectified.The third reason given is the financial risks to the Crown and the fact that it would cost a lot of money to undo what has been done. But then in addition to that of course is the fact that there would be a requirement for the refund I think of a huge number of fines and there is a lot of money involved in that as well. Fourthly and lastly we are told that there would be a reputational risk to the New Zealand Police. But in fact there is a much greater reputational risk to the New Zealand Government for not maintaining an adequate piece of legislation under which these by-laws are made in the first place. The legislation suffers completely from uncertainty and that is the root of the problem.This Government has been in power for the best part of 7 years and it has made many changes to the road transport legislation during that time. So how could it be that it has persevered with the provisions in the Land Transport Act that do not contain a clear and unequivocal system for road-controlling authorities to set speed limits? It is amazing to me that it should have taken this long for this Government to see that there is a problem and to move to solve it. We are told it is urgent and yet it has been years in fact since this problem was understood to be there. So the Government has persevered with procedures for road-controlling authorities to make speed limits for by-laws that are so confusing we are told that for example the Kāpiti Coast District Council has inadvertently got it wrong and told the Government so. That apparently has been the ignition point for this particular piece of so-called urgent legislation—urgent however for some years. Other councils of course might have also used inappropriate procedures. We just do not know how far really this problem has gone.How is it also possible that legislation could have been so badly drafted that if a 5-yearly review of speed limits is not done now then it results in an automatic default to the 100-kilometre-an-hour speed limit? It could and should have provided for continuation of the by-law at least until the review is completed. It is an absolutely awful situation that the default position is the way it is instead of allowing for a continuation of the by-law until a review is done. That is what people would expect to happen and that is what the legislation should have provided for. I am flabbergasted that that has been allowed to last all these years and has not been rectified.The Government does need to take responsibility for this. It is not the councils’ responsibility and it is not the other road-controlling authorities’ responsibility; it is the Government’s through its inadequate legislation and possibly not even just this Government either. I think it looks as though the problem has gone right back to the previous Labour Government as well. So neither Government can be very proud of this situation—very badly drafted legislation that should not have been allowed to go on as long as it has. The primary role of the Government in maintaining appropriate legislation is in fact to ensure legal certainty and that is the one thing that this legislation does not do. Uncertain law is in fact virtually no law at all. So the fault for this shameful situation is the Government’s.If it is the Government’s fault then it is the fault of the Minister of Transport as well. He is responsible for the maintenance of that legislation and for the supervision of it and for its certainty and for the cause in this case of invalid by-laws resulting in speed limits that cannot be enforced. This particular Minister of Transport is too often responsible for a long list of transport cock-ups including running down KiwiRail’s Cook Strait ferries; the 10 bridges proposal of which only three are going to be done apparently; closing railway lines that should not be closed; and so on. This is just one more demonstration of how badly this particular Minister is administering his transport portfolio. He must take direct responsibility for this situation. It is a Government responsibility and it is that Minister’s responsibility.The truth behind this is that the new legislation needed for this revision was first signalled as far back as 2007 under the previous Labour Government when it was decided that there was a need to consolidate and clarify the legislation so that road-controlling authorities could make by-laws to set speed limits with certainty. That was confirmed under this current Government in 2010. So what we can see is this matter should have been acted upon years ago. We are told now that it is urgent but it has been urgent for all of those years and nothing was done. That is a shameful situation; it is one that the current Government should hang its head in shame for.New Zealand First will support the bill. It will do so out of sheer necessity and the fact that it is in the public interest to do so but it does so very reluctantly. We do so very reluctantly because we do not like being put in a position where we have to vote for legislation to clean up muck-ups that should have been cleaned up years ago. That is a sad situation but we will support it simply because there is really no alternative to doing so. However we do deplore the gross delay in rectifying the situation and we do deplore the very bad lawmaking that has been maintained over all of those years and the knowing maintenance of a system that was faulty and has resulted in goodness knows how many invalid by-laws. So this is a really poor situation that should never have happened. We will vote for the bill but we deplore the fact that it has had to happen at all.