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blog.greens.org.nz Last April when the
Land Transport Amendment Bill was going through the Select Committee stage,
then Green MP Mike Ward raised some concerns. It was an omnibus bill,
which means it was fiddling with bits and pieces all over the relevant law.
The Greens agreed with nearly all of it, certainly enough to vote for it. But Mike noticed a
problem with the clause on preventing serious offenders from holding
passenger licenses and he argued for just a few extra words to fix it. Here’s
what the the Committee’s report said (PDF, go to pg 2) : The Green Party
strongly supports improving safety for taxi passengers and preventing
unsuitable people from holding passenger endorsements. However, the Green
Party is concerned at the permanent and retrospective exclusions created by
new clause 29A. Under this clause someone who committed a serious offence in
their teens, served their time and then led a blameless life for 20 or 30
years will lose their license with no possibility of reinstatement. The Green
Party is uncomfortable with the potential for injustice, especially when
there is no evidence that such a blanket prohibition delivers a significant
improvement in safety compared with alternatives. There is a wide range
of options between the status quo and the provisions of the bill as supported
by the majority. The Green Party would prefer that clause 29A was qualified
to allow such a person to hold a passenger endorsement where the Director [of
Land Transport] is satisfied that there is no risk to public safety now or in
the foreseeable future from the person concerned. This is a very high test
and places heavy onus on the Director, who should err on the side of caution.
Failure to include even such a restrictive exemption provision means that we
are elevating taxi driving to a status well above such sensitive areas as
early childhood education in terms of the standards we impose on those
involved. In the Green Party’s view, the main result will be to penalise a
small number of individuals who have long since been rehabilitated while
doing little to improve the safety of taxi passengers overall. Now, the fact that that
is all is reported as a minority view shows you that he failed to get those
words added. Why? Well here’s what then
United Future MP Marc Alexander, also on the Committee, had
to say at the time: United Future’s Marc
Alexander today slammed the Greens “over-weaning concern” for serious
criminals who they would have driving cabs. “Can we think about the
safety of the paying public here?” Mr Alexander said in response to the
Greens’ dissenting view on a select committee report that would ban all
convicted murderers and serious sex offenders from driving taxis, under the
Land Transport Amendment Bill. “If you are paying for
public transport, you are paying for safety, and you have the right to travel
without fear that you are being taken through the back streets by someone who
has killed or molested or raped - and I don’t care if the conviction was 30
years before. It is the proverbial no-brainer,” he said. “I don’t accept the
Greens’ ‘well if they haven’t offended for years…’ line. Shall we take that
approach with teachers with a predilection for child pornography or child sex
convictions many years before? Of course we wouldn’t - and neither should we
with the safety of the travelling public.” I’m told that everyone
from the Minister down actually thought the blanket, no discretion, ban was
mad but, with an election rapidly approaching, no one wanted to be seen to be
’soft on crime’. Alexander in particular whipped up a moral panic on the
committee and was only too happy to do the standard UF thing of accusing the
Greens of being liberal wimps, rather than actually listening to what we were
saying. And so the Bill passed
last June and its changes take effect today. And for the last week, the media
has got worked up over drivers who committed *minor* sexual offences a long
time ago losing their licenses and the Government is scrambling to fix the
‘unforeseen’ error. NZPA reports today: Transport Safety
Minister Harry Duynhoven today said out of about 270 drivers potentially
affected by the law, about 12 had contacted him who carried old convictions
for having sex with their under-16-year-old girlfriends while they too had
also been young. Their records were
otherwise unblemished. “I don’t believe this
law was intended to catch these people,” Mr Duynhoven said. Mr Duynhoven said he
had asked Crown Law and justice and transport officials to study the issue
and see if there was a solution that would allow appeals against the new
provisions to be heard at a high level. “I think in this sort
of thing it’s always good for the director of land transport to have some
sort of discretion.” However if such appeals
were completely impossible under the new set of rules, Mr Duynhoven would
approach other political parties to seek support for an amendment that would
allow appeals in such cases. Now it’s worth
acknowledging that Mike was coming from a more liberal position than most of
the populace - that someone who has committed a serious offence in their
teens can be rehabilitated and therefore trusted, so he was talking about a
larger group than covered by this current fuss. Nevertheless, if the “high
test” of giving the Director discretion, which the Minister now publicly
supports, had been included in the law at the time, as the Greens suggested,
this wouldn’t be happening. As Keith said on
Friday: “We argued some sort of
high-threshold discretion should be built into the system. Such discretion is
vital if we are to respond to real human cases in a common sense and
compassionate manner. It is not without precedent, being available in matters
such as immigration. And what are UF, which
did so much to create this problem, now saying about this? Here’s Mr Common
Sense himself on Friday: United Future leader
Peter Dunne pointed out today that the legislation that will cause some bus
drivers to lose their jobs, because of minor sexual offences committed
several decades ago, appears to breach the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act
1990. “Section 26 states that
‘No one who has been finally acquitted or convicted of, or pardoned for, an
offence shall be tried or punished for it again,’ ” he said. “There’s no doubt that
these drivers are being punished again for the crimes they committed and were
punished for decades ago as a result of the implementation of this
legislation. [snip] “The purpose of the
legislation is clear but a very blunt instrument has been employed to remedy
the harm identified,” said Mr Dunne. All very reasonable in
and of itself, particularly given that he seems to be acknowledging that
rehabilitation is possible. So good on him for pointing out the Bill of
Rights implications. However, it was Mr Dunne’s
own party that insured that the instrument was so blunt. If he had paid
attention to what his MP Marc Alexander was doing back in April, this debacle
could have avoided.
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