Beaumont Carol: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBeaumont Carol: Land Transport Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 30 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19725. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour):Let me start by reiterating Labour’s support for the Land Transport Amendment Bill. We believe that this bill is worthy of support because we have long sought to have the legal alcohol driving limit reduced and this bill finally does that. What it does is it begins to address the problem of alcohol-impaired driving with a number of amendments including lowering the adult legal alcohol limits from 400 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath to 250 micrograms or from 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood to 50 milligrams.This 50 to 80 range has been talked about for some considerable time. Others have alluded to various journalists and other what you might call stunts that have shown that allowing that drinking range and that level of alcohol is actually allowing people legally to drive drunk—that people are sufficiently impaired to the point where they cannot drive a car safely and are a risk on the road. They are a risk to themselves and to other people and that I think is generally accepted. I think most New Zealanders support this change. Most New Zealanders have wanted a lower limit for some considerable time.I find it interesting that the last speaker Denis O’Rourke has opposed this measure on the basis that this is somehow less of a risk—you know the number of deaths and accidents are lower so therefore this is not worth addressing. I find that an extraordinary position to take. Acting on this issue of reducing the legal alcohol limit for driving and dealing with the particular concern that has been sitting there and has been raised over and over again for some time now does not mean that we should not take higher blood-alcohol levels very seriously and in fact look at the sorts of matters that the last speaker has spoken about. Are the sanctions for those higher levels high enough?We certainly need to continue to focus on this issue. There are still people who continue to drive with excessive amounts of alcohol. In fact what we can all see and know is that there is a terrible problem with recidivist drink-driving—people who are seriously impaired or who have even been imprisoned and who get out and then drive again in that state. What that says is that one of the problems we have—and this came up in previous legislation where we have talked about the blood-alcohol limit—is that we do not use the opportunity that this bill provides for dealing with the issue of alcohol abuse.This bill has not dealt with the issue. Previous legislation around younger drivers did not deal with the opportunity that was presented. When people are pulled over and caught for drink-driving it provides a real opportunity to intervene and to provide assistance to people who have an alcohol problem. In fact many submitters on previous legislation said that this is the opportunity. Often when people have a drinking problem it will go unnoticed for a very considerable length of time and in fact often the opportunity to intervene and the first time that it might come to a family’s attention that somebody has an alcohol problem is when they are picked up for drink-driving. We have not addressed that and I think that that is a serious problem because recidivist drink-driving is something we all know continues.However as I said we support this bill. It has been a long time coming. It certainly was raised extensively when we were talking about the Law Commission work Alcohol In Our Lives—that comprehensive report that it did and that we looked at. Many submitters and many people talking to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee at that time raised the issue of reducing the legal drink-driving limit.Then again of course the issue was raised in the legislation that brought in changes to drink-driving for younger drivers. A former colleague had put this measure forward in a member’s bill which was picked up by Iain Lees-Galloway. There was considerable support. What were the reasons for not doing anything at the time? Well others have said that the Minister clearly did not end up with the political will despite initially showing an interest in progressing it.For whatever reason we had all sorts of things said to the select committee like despite the fact that there was significant evidence from other jurisdictions about the changes and the improvements that were made by reducing blood-alcohol levels—the saving of lives and the reduction of injuries—we were told that we needed specific New Zealand research on the matter. Frankly that just seems nonsensical to me. What is it that is so different around drink-driving in New Zealand that would mean we had to have specific New Zealand research? The only thing at the time that people came up with was that we had a lot more rural roads and that was the reason why we had to do all this additional research.Finally we are here. We have been out of step with almost every other Western nation. We do have some concerns although we are supporting this bill and other colleagues have raised them. It is the issue that the New Zealand First speaker has outlined around whether the infringement regime is sufficient whether it will work and whether it is pitched appropriately. Well it is better for us to start at least do something and make progress on what has clearly been a real issue and a real concern.In the period of time between 2006 and 2008 30 people—30 people—were killed in accidents where drivers were known to have a blood-alcohol content of between 50 and 80 milligrams. That is just the number of people who died. There would have been many serious accidents that were also within that range. The costs are not only obviously the deaths but also the cost to the health system of serious injuries and the emotional and other implications for families. That certainly is worth our taking action. It has taken far too long to do so.So we do support this bill. I guess we will want to see how the infringement regime does end up working. I know that my colleague Darien Fenton is likely to raise concerns from the bill’s time in the select committee about how some of the issues around payment for blood tests are going to work out and whether that will create some sort of strange set of circumstances but I will let her talk about that.I guess there is another parallel that really has struck me in looking at this bill though and I do want to finish by talking about another matter—a matter where we know there is a need for action and where the failure to act is costing people’s lives causing serious harm and injury to people in this country and is a cost to them and their family. That is the issue of violence against women and children. We know that there is a need to act. There is strong public support for taking action. Like this situation we are well behind other Western jurisdictions in actually doing something. I say to the House that this is an urgent matter. This is an urgent matter—to deal with the problems associated with domestic and sexual violence as well. We can sit there and know that there is a problem. We can sit there and know that there are things we can do and fail to act. In doing so people’s lives are being lost and people are being seriously injured. There is a huge cost to them their family and the community.Just to finish we are glad this bill is finally before the House. It is a pleasure to support it tonight here at its third reading. I look forward to further action particularly around eliminating violence against women and children.