Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4)

CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) Link to this

I rise to take a short call on this clause of the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4). This bill has been put forward by the Minister, Steven Joyce, and I will quickly get a copy—

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) Link to this

I think the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) is now getting pretty much universal support within the Committee. The progress of the bill was started under Labour. There was a long select committee process, and I think the bill was considerably improved as a result of that process. Because of the industrial relations position that I held, I sat on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and focused on the first part of the bill, the bit that relates to drug-driving. I think we made considerable progress in that area in the select committee. There were a couple of outstanding issues, but I am pleased to report to the Committee that those issues have been resolved as a result of discussions between the Minister, Steven Joyce, the new Associate Minister, Nathan Guy, and the chairperson of the select committee, David Bennett. I will outline very briefly for the Committee the effect of those changes.

The first change is that when people are blood tested and found to have class A drugs in their bloodstream when they have been injured—when they are in a surgery, or when they are in hospital—that evidence will be able to be used against them in a land transport case, just as it is when people are over the alcohol limit, but not in a misuse of drugs case. The second suggestion is that it be made very clear in the law that just because someone has failed a breath test, that does not mean that he or she should be then forgiven or not proceeded with regarding drug testing. The legislation is very explicit that people will be able to be tested for both alcohol and drugs. So if, for example, a police officer, in administering a breath test, comes to the point where someone is a marginal failure, but the person’s eyes are all over the place, he or she has trouble walking, and is slurring words very heavily—much more than would be indicated by the level of alcohol on the person’s breath—then the police officer will be able to proceed to a drug impairment test. If the person fails that test, then the blood will be tested for drugs.

I thank the Minister for his focus on this matter in the last 24 hours, and I am sure that as a result of that focus the amendments that he has drafted will more adequately take care of the policy intention than those that I was able to have drafted without being able to give direction directly to parliamentary counsel. I also acknowledge my sparring partner, Tau Henare, for the work that he did in the select committee to ensure that Government members focused on these issues. I think that without him, the officials might have had their way.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) Link to this

Before I take the next call, I draw to members’ attention that we are on clause 3A, “Short Title and commencement”. I recognise that—

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) Link to this

I seek the leave of the House to have a broad-ranging debate here, on the understanding that we will not mess around on the later clauses.

Hon NATHAN GUY (Associate Minister of Transport) Link to this

Mr Chairperson, thank you very much for allowing the Committee to have a broad debate on a very important bill, the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4). The bill will toughen up the legislation with regard to those who decide to pop a whole lot of pills or to inject a drug into their arm and then go driving behind the wheel. It is important that we protect the other motorists on the roads.

There has been a lot of discussion on this issue. Unfortunately, I was not part of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee that heard the evidence, but just today I have had a thorough briefing from the officials, who, I believe, have done some sterling work on this bill. There has been some cross-party discussion on some of the Supplementary Order Papers that we will get to in the debate this afternoon. This Parliament needs to send a very strong message across the whole of New Zealand that driving while drugged up is not appropriate, nor is driving under the influence of alcohol.

This is an important bill. It is heading in the right direction. The Supplementary Order Papers on the Table are wide ranging. I acknowledge in particular the work that the Minister of Transport, Steven Joyce, has done in his Supplementary Order Paper 10, which will, I think, encompass a lot of what the Hon Trevor Mallard—

DARIEN FENTON (Labour) Link to this

I have been working with the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) from the very beginning: from its introduction in 2007 under a Labour Government, through its first reading, and through the select committee process and the various submissions that were made over quite a long period of time. I think the only other person in the Chamber who has been through that process is David Bennett, who was also on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee last year, and now chairs it very well in the new Parliament.

I think it is important to acknowledge that although the Minister of Transport has done some good work on the bill, it came from a Labour Government initiative. It was the Hon Harry Duynhoven who put this bill through, bless him. At the time the bill was introduced to the Labour caucus and we discussed it, it was reasonably controversial. We were quite cautious about this bill, even though we recognise that there is a problem and a gap in the law, if you like, on drug-driving. There is also evidence that drug-driving causes considerable concern and damage to innocent citizens.

I am very pleased that the Government has agreed to adopt and adapt Trevor Mallard’s amendments. We had a lot of debate in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee about those two particular issues. I am also confident that we now have a bill that deals with the very, very difficult issue of identifying drug-impaired drivers through a walk-the-line test on the side of the road, followed by a blood test. The issue that the previous speaker, Nathan Guy, raised about levels in the blood, and so on, do not apply under this bill. This is a transport measure; it is not a drug enforcement measure. The main purpose of the bill is to get off the road those drivers who have drugs in their system, and who can be a hazard, cause accidents, and hurt other people in doing so.

The bill is very substantive. I think that most debate will be about the first part, which covers drug impairment, but I also note that a significant Part 17 is being inserted into the Land Transport Act by clause 18. It concerns the register that contains information about vehicles. That issue has also caused some debate, and a lot of submissions were made on it during the time this bill was before the select committee.

What I had not understood until I started to look at this issue was that personal information held in the motor vehicles register was able to be accessed by everybody. People can go in and get one’s name and address. It is one of the few registers whereby people can do that. They can get the names and addresses of all persons and organisations registered as the owner of a motor vehicle. The information is available over the counter at post shops and other registration agencies, and there have been no safeguards on the use of this personal information. The system has become open to abuse. We have seen an increase in the number of road rage incidents recently. In the aftermath of those incidents, angry motorists have used the register to trace a person and then harassed that person. There have been other issues. For example, an angry spouse who has separated from his or her partner has sought to track down his or her partner afterwards by following his or her car, taking note of the number plate, and then getting the address associated with it. There have been incidents of professional car thieves targeting high-value vehicles, and using the register to find out where the car is kept.

The select committee heard a number of complaints from people and heard from a number of submitters about their own personal experiences around this issue. Because we require citizens to provide this information—they do not have any choice about it—the Government has a particular responsibility to protect their privacy, and to make sure that that information cannot be used for nefarious purposes. This bill does address that concern, although there are some differences with some of the approaches, which has more to do with the use of that information for marketing purposes. The second part of the complaint we received about the register was that people—

DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) Link to this

I thank the Minister of Transport and members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. A number of members of the committee are here today. As the previous speaker, Darien Fenton, noted, the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) has been carried over from the previous Parliament. Both parties have worked hard to find a constructive solution for the issue that we are dealing with.

I think the first thing to take into account when we look at this legislation is that it is only a starting point. Throughout the passage of the bill, and throughout the debate in the select committee, many valid points were raised about taking the bill further, making it watertight to cover every situation that may arise in the future, and making our testing processes more technologically advanced than they are at the moment. That is all fine and well to do, but the reality is that we had to come back to the starting point, which is the legislation in front of us today. It may not be the most mature legislation, in the sense that it has not been fine-tuned over many years of work through the parliamentary system, but it is an extremely good starting point that the Minister in the chair, the Hon Steven Joyce, can be very proud of. He can see it delivered at a point in time when other Parliaments have failed in the past to do so.

KELVIN DAVIS (Labour) Link to this

I am happy to take a call on the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4). Although I have not been part of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, which helped to develop the bill, the issue it addresses is really close to my heart. I have absolutely no time for those who drink or take drugs and drive. I come from a beautiful part of the country, and we have many talents and skills up in the far north. However, one of the problems that we have is the availability and accessibility of drugs. I do not want to cast a shadow over the far north, but that is one of our problems.

As a school principal I saw the effect of the availability and accessibility of drugs firsthand. In fact, one time I asked the youth aid officer of the local police, with whom I had a really good working relationship, to do a raid on a house from which I suspected a child brought drugs to school. Whereas most people in New Zealand would have in their lounge a bowl for peanuts, potato chips, or snacks of some sort, in 14 places around the lounge of that house the people there had cannabis. While the family was watching TV they would just roll up a joint and smoke it; it just became a normal part of the kids’ lives. To quote another example, in the late 1990s when I shifted to Kaitāia, instead of the player of the day in the local league competition that was running at the time getting a meat pack or petrol vouchers, the player got an ounce of dak. That is disgraceful. That shows how prevalent and normalised the use of drugs has become in some parts of the country.

To bring this speech back to drug-driving, if it is normalised behaviour in sports clubs to take drugs after sports, then that combined with alcohol means that people are drinking and taking drugs. The booze bus turns up regularly to Kaitāia, and the reason it does so is that it regularly catches people. I support that. Even though we are talking about people whom I have played sports with, and people whom I know in the community, I agree that there need to be measures to make sure these people do not continue with this sort of behaviour. As the same youth aid officer I have already mentioned said to me, the only way to change people’s behaviour sometimes is to severely inconvenience them, and the inconvenience of having to get out of a car and walk a line is something I agree with. To take blood samples, and to check to see whether people have drugs in their system are measures I totally agree with, and I congratulate the members who have developed this bill.

There is one area where I do not think the bill goes far enough. We are talking here about dealing with class A, B, or C drugs, but there is also another class of drugs that we should not take lightly, and that is recreational drugs. I struggle to see how we can possibly call drugs “recreational”, because we do not have recreational assault, or recreational murder. I think we should also be testing for recreational drugs, whatever they may be, because to me it is wrong for drugs of any sort to be combined with alcohol and taken by people who are going to parties or coming back from sports events. I have a 14-year old daughter who has started to learn to drive, and it concerns me that when she gets a licence and she does not have her father sitting next to her telling her what to do, she will be going out on her own. She will be on the road with people who may have drugs and alcohol in their systems. So I support these steps that we are taking to make sure that people whose actions are clouded by the presence of drugs in their system will be taken off the roads, so that my daughters, my son, and my other family members will be safer on the road.

DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) Link to this

Part 1 of this legislation, clauses 4 to 18, relates to the heart and soul of what members will be debating today, and also to the amendments that have come through. When we look at those provisions, we see that they contain the rules and regulations about how drug-driving will be tested by the police to determine whether someone is under the influence of drugs while driving.

When we look at the offence of drug-driving, compared with the more common or more understood offence of drink-driving, we see that the nature of that offence is the difficulty in measuring the drugs in someone’s system. There has been a lot of debate on that, and Part 1 reflects that difficulty. Testing for drugs is not as easy as testing for alcohol, in the sense that a method of roadside testing for drugs has not yet been developed for drugs. We do not have that technology available to us, so the testing regime has developed through a two-step process.

The first step is the traditional impairment test to see whether somebody is under the influence of some substance. The nature of that test is very much what we used to do in the old days to test for alcohol impairment, before the technology was developed. That first test is to see whether there is a case of an impaired driver. The officers working in that area are extremely well trained, and there will be special training for officers involved in testing for drug-driving. If an officer believes that a driver is impaired, then the driver’s blood is tested, which is the next level of tests. Those tests are expensive, so it is not expected that every driver will be expected to do a drug test. That is why we have the impairment test to filter out those who may potentially be seen as impaired but not impaired enough to warrant the expense of a blood test.

Part 1 covers a number of issues about blood testing that have become quite prominent. They relate to some of the issues that arise around the current testing for drink-driving, in the sense that there are some holes in the law and this bill attempts to plug them. Those holes relate to particular situations, which one could debate all day and all night, where people cause injury to themselves, and to some of the issues that have been raised by the Opposition members in regard to amendments that have been followed through.

The Minister of Transport has today put before the Committee amendments that try to dilute one offence provision by using another offence provision. Those kinds of requirements and changes to the legislation will be integral in trying to make sure we have a system that covers off as much of that drug-testing as possible, especially in regard to the blood component where there are possible angles whereby smart lawyers, or poor drivers who are breaking the law, could take advantage of a law that is in its infancy and try to create holes by which they could avoid the full force of the law.

This bill is an attempt to try to cover off those angles as much as possible. One such angle relates to the traditional situation where we have that point of difference between drink-driving and drug-driving, in the sense that somebody may be convicted of drink-driving and then the question arises as to whether the person could be convicted of drug-driving. That issue has been covered off in Supplementary Order Papers to this bill, so if there is a minor breach of the drink-driving requirements, then the drug-driving requirements can also be applied.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport) Link to this

I take a call in the third reading of the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) to address Supplementary Order Paper 24, which is before the Committee at the moment. It addresses two matters. I acknowledge the assistance of the Hon Trevor Mallard in advancing these matters. If I may say so, by appearances through this issue he is emerging as a kaumātua of the Labour Party.

The first matter is a substantive change and relates to circumstances where a driver normally has to do an impairment test before he or she can be prosecuted for the offence of drug-impaired driving. However, if the driver is hospitalised and unable to perform the impairment test, the driver could not be prosecuted under the bill as introduced. The Supplementary Order Paper will ensure that hospitalised drivers can be prosecuted for a new offence of driving with class A drugs in the blood. There will not be an impairment test for that offence, because it is impractical. Again, I thank Trevor Mallard for bringing that amendment forward. We had quite a discussion about whether it was going to be class A drugs or controlled drugs generally, but across the Chamber we settled on class A drugs at this time for new section 57A, inserted by clause 6.

The second matter is more one of form rather than substance in that officials advised that they felt we had already covered this one. But it was agreed, and I am comfortable with amending it to be very clear, that the police can advance both the alcohol test and the drug-impairment test at the same time on the side of the road, and they are not precluded from proceedings from both alcohol and drug processes at the same time. Amending these clauses will strengthen the message that drug-driving is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. It will also give judges the option of conviction for drink-related and drug-related offences. So that issue is dealt with by amendments to section 71A in clause 10 and section 72 in clause 11, which are the subjects of Supplementary Order Paper 24.

While I have the microphone, I would like to add how pleased I am to be able to lend my support to a good bill. We talked about the various people who have brought it forward: the previous Government back in 2007, and the excellent work of members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee after the election, as well. I also add my personal pleasure in being able to bring this legislation forward, because drug-driving is a very, very big issue for this country. It has been underplayed in the issue of transport safety, and I am pleased, as Minister of Transport, to bring this bill forward. Perhaps my biggest contribution as Minister is the impetus in terms of getting it through the Chamber, as we hope we will be able to do by next week. Then I think we really will have achieved something in terms of advancing the prosecution of drug-driving in this country.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) Link to this

It is not my intention to speak for long. I have a request to make of Government members: could they stop praising me, please? It is causing some problems with my colleagues.

ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tāmaki) Link to this

I appreciate the opportunity to speak on Part 1 of the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4). I thank Mr Mallard for his request that we stop killing him with kindness. I have to say that I found it very, very hard to break the habits of a lifetime and speak well of him in the second reading debate. I found that my emails and text messages when I left the Chamber were full of questions like “What has happened to you?”, “Have you gone mad?”, and “Are you weakening?”. But I need to say that Mr Mallard made a major contribution on this part of the discussions at the select committee. It was a very challenging aspect of the bill.

The committee was superbly served by its officials and by the police. I think many of us on the committee watched in bemused wonderment, and with a great degree of confidence, the police demonstration as to how the impairment test will be applied on the roadside. A two-part process is outlined. Firstly, there is the establishing of impairment, and, secondly, where necessary, there is a quite expensive follow-up blood test.

I concur with what Mr Davis said when he spoke on the title of the bill. He was a very, very fine school principal, working in a challenging community and setting standards. There are two ways in which we will finally lick this drug business. The first is having community-minded citizens standing up and being counted. In my book What’s Up with Our Schools? I talk about the need for respected figures in communities, like school principals, to stand up and confront the filth that is drug use and drug dealing. Secondly, we need the backing of the law.

I think all New Zealanders will welcome the passage of Part 1 and the statement it makes that this country is no longer prepared to go light on or to tolerate drug use, particularly when it comes to driving motor vehicles. This bill is one more step in the process of ridding our communities of the scourge of drugs. I had no doubt at all during my 16 years as a school principal in two communities that people were driving the streets while drug impaired and preying on youngsters. If this part of the bill gets those people off the streets, and if it takes away their ability to drive their vehicles with impunity, then a lot of good will have been done for New Zealand and New Zealanders—in particular, for New Zealand youngsters.

I am looking forward to this bill being passed, and to the police getting out there on the streets and having another instrument in their armoury in the fight against drugs, drug peddling, and drug use. The committee thought long and hard about how far the bill could go and how tight its measures could be, but everybody was motivated by one thing: the desire to make a start and get it as right as we possibly could. I think the committee, aided so well by officials and the police, has taken some big steps in that direction. I compliment each of the members of the committee on their diligence and thoughtfulness, and on the way that the committee was able to work across parties for the common good of New Zealand. At the end of the day, New Zealanders will welcome this law. They will cooperate with it. They will accept the minor inconvenience that is involved in being stopped on the side of the road, because they want the issue of drug-driving to be addressed.

Hon TAU HENARE (National) Link to this

I echo what has been said already. Part 1 is the heart and soul of this legislation, as my good colleague, and able chairman of the committee, Mr David Bennett said.

Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) Link to this

I am delighted to speak on the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4). It is a bill that I found interesting the first time that it was discussed. There was a very interesting discussion on the issues and the challenges that the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee had to face.

Essentially the bill is about getting unsafe drivers off the road and making our roads safe; that is the prime purpose of the bill. We already have an established mechanism in relation to drink-driving that has been well publicised. Drink-driving is not acceptable, and there is a very easy screening test that can be done at random in just a few seconds. But that is not the case at all for drugs and driving.

I was really interested in the input from the Institute of Environmental Science and Research at the select committee. It presented some fascinating reports that really made the point that drinking and driving, and taking drugs and driving cause death. I will quote from a couple of the studies that the institute gave us. One study, which was carried out over 4 years from June 2004 to July 2008, was of 826 drivers who had died as a result of motor vehicle accidents, and biological samples were able to be taken from these 826 deceased drivers. The deaths were deemed not to be due to medical problems that had occurred prior to the accident, or due to intentional harm such as suicide. These accidents occurred on designated roads, as well.

The study found that 80 percent of drivers were culpable for their own accident. That was particularly true for those aged under 20 and over 80. These drivers were all analysed for drugs and alcohol use, and these are the interesting statistics: 48 percent had had no alcohol or drugs, but over 52 percent had used alcohol and/or drugs; that is over half. Further analysis confirmed that 14 percent had had alcohol and cannabis; 31 percent had used cannabis with or without alcohol or other drugs; 177 drivers had mixed cannabis with other drugs; and 38 percent, or 316 drivers, had used alcohol or cannabis or both, but no other drug. The most commonly detected drugs were methamphetamine, 36 percent; methadone, 13 percent; and morphine, 7 percent.

We asked the Institute of Environmental Science and Research how many innocent people had died as a result of drivers taking drugs. It came back to us with a further evaluation of the data. In the 5 years from 2003 to 2007 it looked at 90 people who had died in crashes where drugs were cited as a contributing factor. Of those people, 53 were drug-affected drivers who died as a result of their own driving and having taken drugs, but 28 were passengers of those drivers and a further nine were other road users. So out of the 90 deaths, 37 were innocent victims; that is over 40 percent.

That is truly terrifying, and that is why this legislation is so important as a way to ensure that drivers can be tested for drugs through the impairment method, which has already been described. It is not yet a screening test. We do not have a screening test. There was some debate about whether a saliva test could be used as a screening test, but that was considered to be unreasonable under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. We considered it to be invasive and that insufficient evidence was available to justify that measure. So until we have the technology for a quick screening test that can be used for drug taking, the impairment test will do. The other measures today mean that we can get drug-drivers and drink-drivers off our roads and keep our roads safe. I commend this bill to the House.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) Link to this

Tēnā koe, Mr Chairperson. Kia ora tātou e te Whare. I congratulate the Minister of Transport, the Hon Steven Joyce, on moving to address the issue of drug-driving. It has long been due, so I say good on him for moving in this direction.

The Māori Party has two concerns that are important to us and that I have addressed with the Minister’s officials. Basically those concerns relate, first, to informed consent, and, second, to the prohibition of storage and analysis of the blood samples. I will refer first to the prohibition on the storage and analysis of blood samples. I was thankful for the information that I got from the Minister’s officials, as it gave me some background to the issue. When blood samples are taken from drivers for prosecutions under the Land Transport Act, the samples are split in two. Sample A is initially tested by the Institute of Environmental Science and Research for the presence of alcohol and/or controlled and prescription drugs. If positive, the samples will be stored securely for 12 months for the purposes of appeal. That is all pretty logical. If a driver wishes to appeal the result of a blood test, the unopened sample B is provided to the testing facility of the driver’s choice and tested. After 12 months all samples are securely disposed of—very good.

The key for us in the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) is that it states that occasionally research will be conducted on the alcohol and drug profile of convicted drivers, and if this occurs then a random sample will be taken from the available blood stocks—that is, the samples of those who have been convicted in the last 12 months. Officials have confirmed that even the samples used for profiling will be kept for only 12 months. That is pretty good. This research is conducted only by the Institute of Environmental Science and Research. Samples are not allowed out of Institute of Environmental Science and Research facilities, for security and biohazard reasons. That is fine. Such research is conducted anonymously and no identifying information is collated during the research.

That is all pretty good, but in the end there was another key aspect for us. I think that the issue of storage has been covered; we take the institute’s word that the samples will all be locked up and secure. From the perspective of the Māori Party it is all about retention of the information about whakapapa and making sure there is no tampering with that information. The second issue is about the ethics of the use of those samples for research. I understand that it is widely accepted that there are ethical protocols around the use of samples for research, and, as the bill states, occasionally samples can be used for research. We are trying to angle at the notion of informed consent. How can that be dealt with knowing full well that the samples will be disposed of in 12 months? I suppose we are asking for consideration that a practice be established around informed consent. I understand that if somebody is in a car accident and samples need to be taken, at that point in time informed consent is a part of the protocols that are required in terms of the retention of blood samples. Having set that precedent, I just ask the Minister to consider whether there is a possibility of looking at and considering the ethical considerations around informed consent, and whether it would be possible, right from the very start, to have a set process around informed consent for the use of research, if we ever head down that way.

At the moment the door is wide open about how blood samples can be used in terms of research, and from the Māori Party’s perspective, we are keen to plug that gap. For the purposes outlined in my speech yesterday about whakapapa being very important, the retention of the fact that those samples are destroyed takes care of one line. There will be no tampering with the samples, as they will be under lock and key. Those sorts of issues are dealt with. But, as I said, our major issue is the whole question about the protocols around research. In one sense, the new section 209A in clause 17 of the bill before us breaches that fundamental principle. On that basis, we hope that some consideration is given by the members of this Committee to that particular provision. I leave it at that, and I hope for a response from the Minister at some point.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) Link to this

I will make a brief comment on the points that the previous speaker, Te Ururoa Flavell, made. I have been reminded that we were told at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee that an approach like the one that the member proposes would kill stone-dead the research being done. The committee found that research particularly valuable in coming to some of the conclusions it reached, and that research is ongoing. Some of the results that we were getting were interim results, but being able to relate the amount of alcohol, the types of drugs, and, sometimes, the amounts of drugs to accidents was very useful to the committee in making its conclusions as to the shape of the law.

I understand that there is a balancing act here. It is an area where Mr Henare and I did not quite get to an agreement on—it was not entirely a love-in—but there is a balance. There are cultural issues, particularly Māori cultural issues, around the taking of blood, the storage of blood, and what blood samples are used for. The balance that goes the other way is the quality of the research that could well lead to fewer deaths in New Zealand. I am sure that this legislation will lead to fewer deaths.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport) Link to this

I will make just a couple of comments in response to Te Ururoa Flavell’s suggestion. I find myself agreeing with Trevor Mallard twice in one afternoon, and he will be as discombobulated about that as I am.

MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) Link to this

I very much appreciate being able to take a call on Part 1 of the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4). I add my voice to the acknowledgments of the excellent work done by the members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. Although I mentioned it yesterday, I also want to congratulate and acknowledge the officials who helped the committee through some quite complex aspects of the law as it related to the bill, as well as some questions we were asking about the Misuse of Drugs Act, and how the two married together.

It struck me during that process that we were probably asking a little bit too much of this bill in our consideration. I wonder whether we were thinking about whether the bill sends a message that it is wrong to take drugs and drive, or that it is wrong to take drugs at all. In that respect, Mr Davis and Mr Peachey provided some very compelling new information about the impact of drugs on their communities, and particularly on the schools that they led. But, fundamentally, this bill is about road safety—keeping us safe on the roads. Yet the question of whether there was sufficient correlation between the Misuse of Drugs Act and this bill continued to underscore the things we were dealing with.

Mr Mallard brought to the Committee the issue of whether somebody who has been in an accident and gone to hospital should have blood taken for the purposes of evidential examination for drugs, and that is a very good issue to raise. We discussed it quite robustly, and there were some very good reasons both for and against doing it. I think the proposed amendment put forward during the Committee stage will achieve what I think is a satisfactory compromise between the two positions—that it should not be done, and that it should. Someone crashing a car and looking a bit glazed might be prima facie evidence of some form of impairment, and if there is a very good context to that, I think that giving the police the discretion to test for class A drugs is a very good compromise. I also say “Well done!” to the Minister of Transport for listening very carefully to the reasoned arguments that were put forward, and for providing the amendment that will see that occur.

I want to touch on the issues that Mr Mallard raised with regard to future-proofing the legislation, and I add my voice to what Tau Henare was saying. We had a very good discussion on whether an Order in Council, or some kind of regulatory provision, would enable the technology to be used as it comes online. This discussion was more difficult in substance than it appeared on the face of it. The technology at the moment is a very, very long way from enabling that to occur. We heard scientists from the Institute of Environmental Science and Research say that the swab that presently can be taken—to be processed by the company in Christchurch—simply will not detect some of the drugs that we are ruling out. It will not catch cannabis, for example, because the atomic weight of cannabis is much larger than the existing test is able to deal with. The handheld device is not easily used, and so on. So I think there are very good reasons for not doing that. But I think it was a worthwhile discussion. We have gone on a journey, and we have come back to the point where we started. I look forward to watching with interest how that matter evolves.

I think we are all agreed that as a result of the passage of this legislation, our roads will be safer. So I offer my congratulations to the committee, I thank the officials, and I say “Well done!” to the Minister of Transport. I support this part. Thank you.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) Link to this

I take a brief call to respond to one issue. Following on from the Hon Trevor Mallard’s kōrero and from the discussion by the Minister of Transport, Steven Joyce, I ask the Minister to give a brief overview of how the samples taken for research are used. I ask this question, which is on our minds, to settle and allay our concerns about the use of that data.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) Link to this

I will have a go at answering the question raised by the previous speaker, Te Ururoa Flavell, while the Minister of Transport gets briefed. The indications we had when considering the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee were that the samples were tested through a two-step or three-step process. It is a broad test that indicates some sort of drug, and samples were cross-tested for alcohol. There was some fine-grain testing to sort out the particular types of drugs that were there when there had been an early indication of drugs. That research was then used for what was essentially a statistical analysis of the correlation between the accidents, the seriousness of the accidents, and whether the accidents caused death or serious injury. In particular, there has been quite a lot of research around whether people were more likely to have serious accidents if there had been a multiplicative effect—if they had alcohol or a drug, or more than one drug.

The very clear evidence coming out of that research is what intuition would tell us. For a number of drugs, having the smoke after a couple of jugs is much, much worse than having a couple of jugs or having a smoke. It is not additive; the substances can actually multiply on each other and accidents are much more likely to occur. It is emerging evidence. Some of the testing, especially around some of the harder drugs, is relatively new. There are research papers on it and although sample sizes are now getting to the point of being valid, earlier on they were not. It is an ongoing process, but it is very clear that we do not have enough information—

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport) Link to this

I rise to take a short call on the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4), and again I would like to thank my erstwhile assistant, the Hon Trevor Mallard, who is perhaps almost a relative now in terms of how much assistance he has offered.

I just clarify very clearly that this research can be used for road safety purposes only. The sorts of things we are looking for, literally, are statistical analyses of the sorts of drugs that are involved. The research will be broken out in terms of geography, age, the time of week, and those sorts of things. This will assist the officials and the road safety community to work out where to target their advertising and their road safety measures. It has to be completely anonymous. We could not go down to the level of one bloke in Stratford, or wherever else it may be. I stress that the amount of information we have at the moment is limited to that on deceased drivers only, and we strongly suspect that that skews the numbers one way or the other. We could be looking at a far bigger problem than there appears to be on the basis of that information, or we could be dealing with a smaller problem, or we may need to focus on other areas. But until we have that statistical work, we will not do that. Again, I say we will be very careful to retain anonymity, and it is about road safety purposes only. Thank you, Mr Chairperson.