Ririnui Mita: Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Ririnui Mita: Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:671;Page:18076] 
Hon MITA RIRINUI (Labour) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Chairperson and let me also endorse some of the comments of previous speakers in congratulating you on your appointment as Assistant Speaker. It is good to see you in the Chair once again and I look forward to your reminding us of the Standing Orders one after another for a very long time. 
Previous Opposition speakers have stood and said that Labour supports the bill for a number of reasons but I am actually quite amused by the contribution made by my colleague the Hon Tau Henare who suggested that the Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be renamed the “Drink-drivers Are Going to Get Pinged Bill” which is probably what he believes. I would endorse that to a point. I would say that we should rename the bill the “Drink-drivers Are Going to Get Pinged (but They Can Still Have a Couple of Beers More Before They Do Get Pinged) Bill” because what this bill fails to do is to take notice of public opinion. The public opinion is that the blood-alcohol limit should be lowered from 0.08 grams to 0.05 grams and that clearly is something that the Government has ignored. As we know it is very dangerous to ignore strong public opinion particularly when it comes to matters of public safety on our roads so that is something we are quite disappointed to see in terms of this bill. 
However it is logical that we support this bill for a number of reasons such as the zero limit for repeat drink-drivers and the zero limit for drivers under 20—and we have seen much of that happen in recent years; actually over the past decade or so—the alcohol interlocks for repeat offenders and the doubling of the minimum prison term for drink-driving drug-driving or reckless driving that causes death. These are all issues that affect all our communities. These are the issues that many of us as parents fear every time our young people leave home to go out and socialise with their friends and all the time that they are out we sit at home wondering whether they are OK. 
We in this Chamber should do everything possible to ensure that our young people are OK when they go out and socialise and that is why the Labour Opposition says that this bill does not go anywhere near to being enough to satisfy our concerns as we sit at home that our young people our tamariki and our mokopuna are safe out there on the streets and also that they are not endangering the lives of others. It is important that we have a rigorous debate about this particular legislation knowing that at some time or another it may affect any one of us in this Chamber in the most tragic way. 
I heard previous speakers refer to family circumstances. I am fortunate to have four sons. I have a 15-year-old who is coming up on 16 and who is currently about to go for his probationary driver’s licence. I know that his teenaged ambition is to achieve that. He wants to be an automotive mechanic. Unlike my other sons who have achieved to the very highest level in universities he just wants to be a mechanic. He just wants to be a person who can take a motorcar to pieces and put it back together on his own. I come from a trade as do many other people in this Chamber and it is a satisfying achievement to have a trade behind one. 
But having said that I look at the possibility of raising the age limit to 16 in terms of young people acquiring their driver’s licence and I think that my son will be fortunate to acquire his driver’s licence at that age and enter an automotive mechanics course at the Bay of Plenty Polytechnic and from there he can achieve just about anything he wants. If this legislation should come into force though it may be that it will restrict the ability of our young people in the future to achieve what many other young men and women have already achieved. On these courses a probationary driver’s licence is a necessity. One cannot get on to the course without it and that makes a lot of sense. How would someone fix a motorcar—pull it to pieces and put it back together—if he or she does not know how to drive it? It is like many other things. If we do not understand how the particular pieces of machinery work we will never become an expert at working on them. I want the Government to actually think about that. Although it is attempting to promote public safety albeit in a mediocre way it may also be limiting opportunities.