Twyford Phil: Land Transport Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: Land Transport Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 22 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19292. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū):Just to follow on from Darien Fenton it has to be noted I think that the Land Transport Amendment Bill is squeaking through in the last gasp of this parliamentary term. It has been sitting around in this House—going back to the issues being on the Table of this House—since 2009. Although we support this bill we regret that it has taken so long to progress. If we are going to speak plainly about this I think we have to acknowledge that the root of the problem which has held the bill up for so long is Steven Joyce’s unwillingness to risk being perceived as nanny State. That is basically what it is. In Steven Joyce’s own words it is the optics. He was so concerned about any public perception that this bill would be perceived as nanny State as too much of an intrusion on people’s rights to drink and drive that he was willing to ignore official advice that this bill these provisions would save on average 3.4 lives per year—3.4 fatalities.That is the advice. That is the social cost—the injuries and fatalities caused by people who have been driving over or within the legal blood-alcohol limit from 80 to 50 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood for drivers over 20. That is the social cost. There were 61 fatalities 244 serious injuries and 761 minor injuries every year caused by drivers at fault who had been drinking. The social cost of these injuries and fatalities is $446 million. The provisions in this bill alone would save according to the projections that have been made 3.4 lives on average 64 injury-causing crashes and save $200 million in social costs over the 10 years. That is the cost. That is the cost of delaying this legislation at least 4 years. We find that regrettable.I note that there is another echo of the same dynamic at work with the proposal that was made by Ministry of Transport officials about 3 years ago to make marine lifejackets mandatory for recreational boaties after a string of appalling drownings including a whole family on Manukau Harbour about 3 years ago. The transport Minister told the officials to withdraw that material that advice and those recommendations to make lifejackets mandatory for recreational boaties and remove them from the paper that went to Cabinet. That advice included the view that making lifejackets mandatory would save 10 to 12 lives a year.We support this bill. It is long overdue. As previous speakers have said this will simply bring us up to speed with other jurisdictions that we often compare ourselves with. I want to come to the point that a couple of other speakers have referred to and that is the decision made by the Government to basically make it a civil offence instead of a criminal offence. Mike Sabin in his comments seemed to be making the argument that making the blood-alcohol infringements that fall between the 80 and 50 milligrams a civil offence would somehow provide greater certainty and speed of consequence and that it would therefore act as a deterrent. It does not seem like a very compelling argument to me that someone drinking in a bar and contemplating driving home after a few drinks is going to think that because it is a civil offence and not a criminal offence it is acting as more of a deterrent. I do not find that argument very convincing. I did not serve on the select committee so if the Minister in the chair or others who served on the committee who heard the evidence would like to explain further I would certainly be keen to hear that explanation.I think that one of the other interesting clauses in the bill is clause 13 which deals with the power of an enforcement officer to immobilise a vehicle in certain circumstances. I thought that was worth pointing out. Currently an enforcement officer may immobilise a vehicle or basically forbid the person to drive if the result of an evidential breath test indicates that they are over the 400 micrograms. This bill essentially broadens that out and says that there only has to be an evidential breath test that is positive and the officer has the right to either forbid them to drive or to immobilise the vehicle. I will leave it there. We support this bill but we regret that it has taken so long to get to this stage.