Land Transport Amendment Bill ; third reading
Wednesday 24 June 2009; 5.30pm
Te Ururoa Flavell, MP for Waiariki

I read a statistic today that confirmed even more for me the importance of doing what we can to reduce injury and death on the roads.

Fifty-one percent of Māori people who die due to injury, died on the street or highway in road deaths. Forty-six percent of these deaths were due to motor vehicle crashes.

That is one hell of a waste of Māori potential that is just being ripped away from us because of hazardous driving and reckless drivers. It is not just a loss of life that we are talking about here, which is a tragedy in itself, but also the estimated social cost of road crashes includes loss of life or life quality, medical and rehabilitation costs, legal and court costs, property damage, and loss of output due to injuries.

In 2005 that was heading well beyond a $100 million amount. That is a huge amount to spend on all of those particular aspects of the things that come from death by road accident. I stated in my second reading speech that in my electorate alone in the Eastern Bay of Plenty there were some 62 injury crashes on local roads and another 47 injury crashes on State highways in just 1 year, in 2006.

Some of these injuries were due to drivers not having gone through all the requirements to be on the road in the first place. Of the at-fault drivers and crashes in the Eastern Bay of Plenty, 14 percent were driving on a restricted licence, 3 percent were disqualified, and 10.7 percent held a learners licence. But by far the most significant factor in doing something about road safety is actually in what this bill is trying to do.

It is introducing a new duty not to drive while impaired by drugs. In 2006 driver alcohol and drugs were a contributing factor in 99 fatal traffic crashes,409 serious injury crashes, and 1,128 minor injury crashes.

These crashes resulted in 109 deaths, 556 serious injuries, and 1,768 minor injuries. These numbers are based on crashes where alcohol or dugs were proven or suspected to be a contributing factor in a crash: 100 hundred people who did not need to die; over 2,000 people who will never ever forget the idiot in charge of the wheel for what they did to impair their loss of enjoyment of life.

I am told that at the select committee submissions were received from people who claimed that cannabis does not impair driving. In fact, some even testified that it made a person drive even better, that it made that person become a better driver.

Well, as this House knows, research to date confirms that cannabis and its active ingredient, THC, impairs driving and has a considerable affect when consumed at high levels. So let us not dream on that this is not the case. I have been to too many tangi, courthouses, and hospitals not to see the effect of drug-driving as being a serious issue that must be considered.

TE URUROA FLAVELL245 Some people may say that those people who drive under the influence of alcohol or drugs should cop whatever damage comes to them. But it is not just about them. For every 100 drunk or drugged drivers or riders killed in road crashes, 56 of their passengers, as well as 39 sober road users, die with them.

This Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) is for those people. It is to preserve our people power, to protect our whakapapa, and to invest in the lives of all of our whānau. The current threshold for the offence of drug-impaired driving is being “incapable”, which means being incapable of having proper control of the vehicle. This bill lowers the threshold to being “impaired”.

So where there is evidence of controlled drugs, or prescription medicines, in the driver’s blood, it is determined by a robust test. We support the move to penalise drug driving and the introduction of a testing and penalty regime that mirrors alcohol testing. But we do have two important concerns.

These were concerns that I raised at the debate at the Committee stage of the House. I had two specific amendments. The first concern was related to informed consent, and the second one was on the prohibition on storage and analysis of blood samples.

Firstly, there are a number of widely accepted and established ethical protocols in the field of research, and arguably the most important of these is the principle of informed consent. Informed consent means that the people being subjected to research are properly informed of the research to be undertaken, what it entails and its implications, and that they give their consent to it without interference.

New section 209A compromises this fundamental principle, and it was on this basis that we put forward an amendment to address it. We hope that having raised these issues consistently around the bill, the Minister will ensure that the ethical considerations are given due respect so that we can seem focused going into protocols around research.

The other amendment that I put up responds to a number of concerns about the storage and reanalysis of blood specimens for research purposes. The blood specimens taken from drivers who fail drug or driving impairment tests give rise to a whole host of concerns about who has the right to such samples, and, in particular, our anxiety that there should not be tampering with that information.

We are concerned about the wide implications of the State having legal rights to use blood samples for further research, such as for what kind of research, by whom, for what purposes, and for whose benefit.

Although this might sound like a bit of a conspiracy plot, there have been examples in our recent history, and, indeed, for indigenous people around the world. It has been discovered that highly questionable genetic research has been conducted on body parts, and on tissue and blood samples without permission, without ethics approval, and without the opportunity for public debate. In a desire to understand why so many of their own developed stomach cancer, one whānau underwent genetic blood testing, and unbeknownst to them, these blood samples were passed on to international genetic companies for further analysis, and commercial exploitation.

This was done without their consent, and, for some time, without their knowledge even. If members are interested, I refer them to a paper entitled Hands off our genes: A case study on the theft of whakapapa, written by Donna Gardiner.

The research done by a whakapapa on its blood is not for exploitation or for profit; it is not up for grabs. The Minister of Transport gave me assurance following that debate that the issues have been resolved and that the Institute of Environmental Science and Research Ltd had some pretty tough criteria situated around how any research is conducted.

The samples are not allowed out of the facility for security and biohazard reasons, and, therefore, the officials have assured us that the samples will be kept only for 12 months. We will leave that issue there.

Suffice to say, these are very important issues to the Māori Party that we have signalled. We must ensure that we do the right thing.

The Māori Party has previously stated in the House that it is fully supportive of the need to put in place a testing regime for drug driving. We accept that current limits on saliva testing technology mean that the taking of blood is the best way to do so at this time. We also accept that the very best of intentions may lie behind the idea of storing the blood samples for further research, specific to drug driving.

We cannot accept the very real risk that this unwittingly might create a situation where whakapapa is able to be compromised. We do support this bill on its final reading, and we will always support any interventions that are about protecting and preserving life.

We will be watching, as one would understand, to see whether the protocols are adhered to, and that the proper protections are in place. In closing, I offer thanks and congratulations to the Minister of Transport for working with the Māori Party on our concerns. Kia ora tātou.

ENDS

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