Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill #1
Hone Harawira, Maori Party Member of Parliament for Te Tai Tokerau
Thursday 16 September 2010

A couple of things I note when I look through the stats on this take …
The first point is that Polynesians drive less often than Pakeha, but we tend to get hurt in more accidents (3 times more than for non-Maori) and die more often from car accidents (20% for Maori compared to 8% for non-Maori)
The second point is that Maori children are injured a lot more often than non-Maori in car accidents as well.

And a big part of all that, is about where a lot of Maori people live

Tai Tokerau for example, and more specifically the Far North District Council, has more unsealed roads than any other district in the whole country, a problem made worse by the fact that our rating base is not strong because of low socio-economic conditions, so there’s not a lot of spare money to spend on roading improvements, and on top of all that, our roads are the subject of massive wear and tear from forestry trucks as well.

So the state of our roads is a major factor.

Then there is the state of a lot of the vehicles on our roads, and I see a lot of them up close when I’m hitchhiking round the north, and I don’t mind admitting that I’ve gotten into some pretty dodgy lookin’ vehicles over the last few years.

But people have to use their cars, and keep them running, even without a warrant and registration, because there is very little in the way of public transport as well so that’s another major factor.

Then of course there is driving behaviour, a problem common to all but made worse because of our road conditions – too much speeding, too much drinking, too little use of seatbelts.

And on top of all that a lot of the Maori population are young – very young, and so they naturally fall into the death from accident rates which are more than twice that of the rest of the population, but for young Maori, those rates are even worse - 14 per 10,000 compared to just 3 for non-Maori.

So, given the horrific statistics as they apply to Maori, particularly young Maori, I was more than a little disappointed, but not particularly surprised, that in the whole 93 pages of the bill, Maori don’t get a mention at all.

So what can we do about it?

Well one of the things I’ve noticed is local health providers working with whänau to help make sure kids have all got car seats, and teaching everyone how important it is to use them.

Defensive driving courses help – I know – because my mokopuna is asking for money to do a defensive driving course to shorten up his time on a restricted licence – so that’s two pluses for me. He learns to drive better, and my lawns get mown three times to pay for the course!!

And then there’s the Street Talk Defensive Driving Courses like those being run at the MUMA in conjunction with Te Wananga o Aotearoa to help drivers improve their driving behaviour. Fran Hokianga reckons they see about 70 students a month and she tells us that they’ve got a 98% pass rate – and that the 2% who don’t pass, are the ones who don’t show up at all!!!

So it’s good to see these kinds of initiatives being supported in the bill.

We support the zero tolerance proposals, although we would make that the case for all drivers and not just for young ones, because while it’s true that drinking is a problem for young people, it’s also true that drinking is a huge problem for our whole society, and really, all our kids are doing is just playing follow-my-daddy.

But what we know doesn’t work is increasing fines – they just stack the odds against people and make them more devious and even more dangerous.

We don’t like police getting new powers for blood collection, particularly given their deceitful record in getting DNA under dubious circumstances over the past few years.

We don’t support the proposal to raise the minimum driving age, for a whole host of reasons, and we’re disappointed that there’s not enough in the bill about road safety awareness for young drivers.

The better informed they are, the better chance there is that they will behave better, particularly in crisis situations.

The Maori Party will support this bill to first reading to allow time for all Maori groups and individuals who have a stake in this issue to tell select committee what they think of this bill and how they think it might be changed to improve services to Maori in the future.

Our vote beyond first reading will be determined by what we hear through the select committee process.

ENDS

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