Katene: Land Transport Amendment Bill
te-pati-maori
Fri May 06 2011 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
Katene: Land Transport Amendment Bill
Friday, 6 May 2011, 10:04 am
Speech: The Maori Party
Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill; Rahui Katene, MP for Te Tai Tonga
Thursday 5 May 2011
This is one of those pieces of legislation which presents the most dreadful dilemmas as we have done our best to consider each of the implications and consequences of the issues encompassed in the Bill.
Suffice to say it has not been an easy journey.
For the sake of a simple yes or no, we have had to consider a mixed bag of options in repealing the Transport Act 1962 and amending the Land Transport Act 1998.
The key changes proposed encompassed in the vote today take into account:
The push to raise the minimum licensing age from 15 to 16 years;
A zero breath/blood alcohol concentration for drivers aged 20 years of age;
tougher sanctions for serious or repeat driving offenders,
possibilities of an alcohol interlock sentence and a zero alcohol licence;
and a range of other measures of enforcement and controls.
The question that has challenged us right throughout this process, was how can our vote represent and give shape the range of issues any of these issues provoke.
Take for example, undoubtedly the most contentious – raising the minimum licensing age from fifteen to sixteen.
All of us enter this debate knowing that young Maori have the highest per capita road fatality rate.
Just on the youth demographic alone, young drivers make up 14.5% of New Zealand's population and 16% of all licensed drivers, but in 2008 they were involved in around 37% of all serious injury crashes.
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But when you add ethnicity to the mix it becomes even more volatile.
From a statistical basis, Census 2006 shows Maori make up 19.5% of the 15-19 age group and yet Maori make up 26% of all drivers involved in fatal accidents aged 15-17.
Let’s be quite clear. These statistics are an indictment on our nation in particular and place an unacceptable burden on the Maori population.
There is no debate over whether or not we have a problem with road safety. Where there is a difference is whether we have the right solutions to achieve change.
The stats for the years 2006 - 2008 show that "of all the drivers involved in fatal crashes the 20-24 and 25-29 year old age groups were the most likely to be affected by alcohol/drugs”.
So should it be drug and alcohol treatment that we focus on rather than lifting the licence age?
Our views amongst the caucus were inevitably based on a rural lifestyle where young people are driving from a young age out of necessity.
Country kids often assist with stock moving and driving on the farm. They might also help move stock on the road, acting as sentinels to slow down oncoming traffic, using either their farm bikes or SUV's.
Given these realities, our caucus thought instead we might support making the restricted test more difficult and extending the learner licence period from 6 to 12 months.
We believe that there are enough regulations in place to moderate driver behaviour such as restricted licences and learners licences
We would also like to see more investment in Defensive drivers education. A common concern from across our constituency is that it is too costly.
We believe that rangatahi should have access to high quality road safety education – we must improve road safety education for young people and increase access to it.
During the months leading up to this final reading, each of us have looked more keenly around our rural communities, to put to the test our theory that rural families will be particularly disadvantaged by raising the driver age.
What we saw shocked us.
We found that people do not buckle up, regardless of age. Adults model behaviour – and in too many cases it leaves a lot to desire.
Unrestrained children are regularly seen being held by an adult in vehicle with the adult also not restrained.
There seems a challenge of dare to drive unbuckled. In fact, those living in the city can be identified as those who drive buckled up and who lock their cars when they get out of them.
Fines do not work - they are just not paid. Referrals are made to the nearest social services driving courses and applications submitted to Work and Income to pay for the course. But do the fines prevent further offending? Hard to say.
Will amending a bylaw, a process requiring a special consultative procedure or introducing a vehicle be the superior answer?
Mr Speaker, as is no doubt self-evident, the questions kept coming, with each new issue another set of questions arose.
And then just two months ago, in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health I came across an article by team of writers including distinguished researcher from the Ngai Tahu Maori Health Research Unit at Otago University, John Broughton.
The paper was entitled, ‘Road safety attitudes and opinions of newly licensed Māori car drivers: New Zealand Drivers Study’.
The article sourced its genesis in the disproportionate impact of motor vehicle traffic crashes amongst Maori.
In 2006, the age-standardised Motor vehicle traffic crash death rate for Māori was twenty per 100 000 population compared to nine for non-Māori.
Not content with the statistics, John and his colleagues, Anna McDowell, Dorothy Begg and Jennie Connor looked into the New Zealand Drivers Study of some 4000 car drivers to find some answers.
To encourage Māori participation, Māori community/iwi organisations from Napier/Hastings, Wairoa, Gisborne, Ruatoria,
Manukau and Mangere in South Auckland, and Dunedin were subcontracted to recruit study participants in their region.
What the study found was that here was a surprising level of support for raising the minimum driver licensing age and introducing a zero blood alcohol limit for beginner drivers. This was encouraging from a safety perspective, as it came from a cohort of predominantly young drivers who are often thought to oppose such moves.
Of particular interest to us was the support indicated around raising the minimum driver licence age from 15 to 16 years. The data indicate that this change would have the support of 45% of the urban and 33% of the rural newly licensed Māori drivers in this study.
Another interesting finding was that the lack of knowledge about the penalties for committing any offences would suggest that the penalty regime was having little, if any, deterrent effect.
Where did we get to then, with our vote?
We decided that the disproportionate number of injuries and fatalities among the Maori population as a direct result of car accident, required our absolute commitment to get it right.
We want to protect and preserve life – the life of those driving, those who are passengers, those who wait at home a loved one who never returns.
We have no choice but to invest in the hope this package of initiatives will this time make the difference that will ultimately keep people alive, particularly our rangatahi,
We therefore make our final vote in this Bill one of support.
ENDS
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