Nat backer gives Joyce the message on drink driving

9 December 2010 - Media Statement

A prominent National Party backer’s anti-drink driving advertising campaign will further embarrass Transport Minister Steven Joyce and his do-nothing, offend-no one approach to lowering the blood alcohol limit, says Labour’s Transport spokesperson Darren Hughes.

Darren Hughes said that the backer, Bob McMillan, of Team McMillan Ltd, took out a large advertisement in The New Zealand Herald this week headed: You drink, you drive --- you die.

“Earlier this year Bob McMillan invited Prime Minister John Key to a corporate fundraiser, and donated $50,000 to National. He referred to John Key as ‘our master’. Well, I wonder what he thinks now of ‘our master’s servant’ Steven Joyce, and his obdurate and spineless refusal to tackle the issue of drink-driving.

“The McMillan advertisement states the drink-driving problem starkly, simply and clearly,” Darren Hughes said. “It says: ‘… after many years and many millions of drink-drive TV ads, we’re still getting behind the wheel drunk’.

“Steven Joyce has the opportunity of a supportive Parliament to lower the blood-alcohol limit to 0.05, but he won’t take it. He says he wants more research done, but the real reason is that he doesn’t have the spine to take on the alcohol lobby.

“There are two very strong messages in Bob McMillan’s advertisement which are not getting through to a minister who for political reasons just doesn’t want to listen,” Darren Hughes said.

“The first message is that at the current level you are three times as likely to crash as you are when you haven’t been drinking.

“The second message is that too many drivers don’t think about the consequences of drink driving or don’t care. Surveys show up to 40 percent of Kiwi drivers believe there is only a small chance they will be caught under our 0.08 limit. If we lower the limit there’s a far stronger chance that drivers will think more seriously about the consequences of their stupidity.”

Darren Hughes said he hoped Bob McMillan’s strong campaign helped sway Steven Joyce and the National cabinet. “I don’t agree with Bob McMillan’s politics, but on this issue he offers compelling arguments, and I will back anyone who wants to save Kiwis from being killed.”

ENDS

© Scoop Media