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From
Today's NZ Herald "Transport Safety
Minister Harry Duynhoven is promising to take a leadership role in revisiting
a controversial law that from Monday will see up to 400 bus and taxi drivers
lose their right to transport passengers. The livelihood of
hundreds of bus and taxi drivers is being taken away as the new legislation
precluding certain criminal offenders from holding a passenger transport
licence comes into force. The Bus and Coach
Association and Taxi Federation say many of their members will be unfairly
punished. Bus and Coach
Association deputy executive director, Dave Smith said there were a number of
"fish-hooks" in the law that were clearly unfair to drivers. For example, it was
harsh that a bus driver who was convicted as a teenager for having sex with
his girlfriend a few days before her 16th birthday more than 34 years ago was
about to lose his job. Mr Smith said
homosexuality was an illegal act about 20 years ago, and in the past
14-year-olds who committed indecent acts such as exposing themselves were
criminally prosecuted." Dave Smith is of course
right. This highlights the principle that governments should be gathering
information on convictions, but unless it involves a state employee, should
have no say on how it is used. The power of
legislation is a very blunt instrument. In order to protect passengers from
deviant drivers, he state has passed a law that will do a very real injustice
to some drivers, with no benefit to passengers. There is a real problem
here. I drove taxis for several years and lost count of the times young women
recounted tales of bad experiences with sleazy drivers. So how would a free
market approach improve the situation? In a free society, taxi
companies would hire staff, with full access to applicants conviction
records. The companies would be liable for damages should one of their
employees harm a passenger. To guard against this, each company would carry
public liability insurance. Insurance companies and the taxi company would
then have a real interest in assessing the risk posed to the public by any
prospective employee. The difference here is
that this would all be voluntary and not be mandated by legislation. Every
employee could be looked at individually and judged on their merits. If Fred
had a conviction for unlawful carnal knowledge 40 years ago, but had led a
blameless life since, he would be fine. Conversely, in a free
society, companies could make judgements even where no conviction had been
entered. If Jim had no convictions, but had a reputation for sleazing on
young women, he could be tossed out. When I was driving, one
of our people was found trespassing in the bedroom of a seven year old girl,
while on duty. The parents didn't bother prosecuting and no sexual act had
been committed, so the company couldn't sack him. In a free society,
employment contracts could close this type of loophole. Health and safety
issues are far better handled by the insurance system, than by government
legislation. A free market approach
to passenger safety would be far more effective and reduce the risk of the
type of injustices, our current approach, clearly produces. |
