Now the new Government has settled in the National Opposition is dominating members’ bills. This isn’t surprising as they dominate the number of MPs who can submit bills.
RNZ: Saliva testing bill drawn from parliamentary ballot
National MP Jami-Lee Ross’s oral fluid testing member’s bill would allow the police to test the saliva of motorists for residues of meth, ecstasy and cannabis.
Labour’s Rino Tirikatene’s Electoral Amendment Bill would entrench Māori seats in legislation – bringing them into line with general seats.
Another bill by National’s Ian McKelvie would allow Justices of the Peace and Community Magistrates to hear category one dog control cases, in a bid to ease delays in the courts.
National’s Paula Bennett also had her firearms prohibition bill drawn. It would ban gang members from owning guns.
Is the ban on gang members from owning guns ‘virtue signalling’. It seems unnecessary. There are already rigorous checks done before firearm licenses are issued and also reissued – I am currently re-applying for my own license (ten yearly) and this includes a home visit.
Your NZ 
NOEL
/ 4th May 2018Gee with all the hoopla trying to get gang patches outlawed after they lawyered up how successful will Bennetts Bill be?
NOEL
/ 4th May 2018Oops missed that. Prohibition Order recommendation.
https://www.parliament.nz/resource/en-NZ/SCR_72851/f06602dd80c8bcc69220182d246269b2427510b9
Blazer
/ 4th May 2018at least progress is being made….the B team has adopted…virtue signalling.
duperez
/ 4th May 2018What’s a ‘gang’?
Griff
/ 4th May 2018https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangs_in_New_Zealand
PartisanZ
/ 4th May 2018‘Gang’ is a loaded word with a hair trigger, waiting to be fired almost randomly, signalling any social problem people want to attach non-specific responsibility to …
1) ‘Drug Driving’ and ‘Drink Driving’ are clearly separated in the Public Address Advertorials on television and elsewhere … which, IMHO, now very clearly emphasise ‘Drug Driving’ … while ‘Drink Driving’ is far-and-away the cause of most of the harm.
Yet the two are lumped together as Alcohol/Drugs in the risk, crash, fatality and casualty statistics … Pgs 4 – 8 in the pdf … I find alarming, lamentable and even somewhat sinister.
Alcohol is effectively considered a ‘drug’, which of course it is … except apparently in Law, where it has its own special place … Alcohol …
Click to access Alcohol-drugs-2017.pdf
Let’s hope the adoption of this legislation and subsequent roadside saliva testing continues to reduce the Alcohol (and minuscule Drug) related harm, and doesn’t hinder the removal of cannabis from testing when it becomes legalized?
2) An entrenchment very much to be wished and long overdue … Provided it doesn’t prevent the Maori Seats being altered or expanded in future …
3) Makes sense …
4) Virtue signalling … or possibly the First of ‘DOH!’ …?
NOEL
/ 4th May 2018“We recommend to the Government that the Arms Act 1983 be amended to clearly
state that a gang member or prospect must not be considered a fit and proper person to
possess firearms and therefore must not hold a firearms licence. ”
I can see this one going all the way to the High Court.
phantom snowflake
/ 4th May 2018Obviously we must have a huge problem with gang members shooting people with firearms which they are licensed to own. Hilarious!
NOEL
/ 4th May 2018In recommending they are not fit for a firearms licence it defaults to cover illegal weapons which is probably the real aim.
phantom snowflake
/ 4th May 2018“it defaults to cover illegal weapons“?? I may be obtuse, but I’m just not getting it. How does being disallowed a firearms license have effect on the gang member’s ability to buy firearms on the black market?
PDB
/ 4th May 2018“Labour’s Rino Tirikatene’s Electoral Amendment Bill would entrench Māori seats in legislation – bringing them into line with general seats.”
Would probably need Winston’s help to get over the line – after backing down on abolishing the Maori seats that he promised his supporters will this become Winston’s biggest career flip-flop?
PartisanZ
/ 4th May 2018Gracious of you to acknowledge that Winston wanted to abolish the Maori Seats PDB, rather than have a referendum to decide their fate … Freudian slip?
Peters’ has flipped the flop already and lost those ‘Right Brigade’ supporters forever … Most of them can’t go to the Conservatives, which is why National are considering orchestrating a New Right-Blue Party.
Which is not to say Peters won’t endanger his own coalition by voting against the Bill.
PDB
/ 4th May 2018I don’t vote WInston so not sure why I’m being ‘gracious’?
phantom snowflake
/ 4th May 2018The “Land Transport (Random Oral Fluid Testing) Amendment Bill” is a relic from last millennium’s War On Drugs, is deeply flawed, and should be binned. The presence of traces of a drug does not prove impairment!! The only regimes for drug testing of drivers which have any validity are those which involve blood testing and in which a limit has been set above which impairment is considered to be established. I’m a bit puzzled about the true intent of this bill. Is it Virtue Signalling? or is it a strike in a Class War of Social Conservatives Vs Drug Users??
PDB
/ 4th May 2018Isn’t the drug roadside test being put forward as part of this bill just a precursor for a blood test thus replacing the compulsory impairment test? Sort of like the quick roadside test for alcohol and if you fail that you do the full one?
Are you also saying we should just not bother worrying about people on drugs that are driving on our roads?
phantom snowflake
/ 4th May 2018Frustratingly the bill has disappeared from parliament’s website so I’m a little bit in the dark. However the parallel you have drawn with the blood alcohol test is utterly wrong; the alcohol test measures whether the individual has exceeded a limit which indicates impairment whereas no such limits have been set for other drugs.
Some other countries have addressed the issue I am referring to. For example, I have a friend who had a positive saliva test for cannabis at the roadside in Germany. He was taken for a blood test which showed levels of THC above the limit for impairment. (Which had been determined by research.) He was charged.
“Are you also saying we should just not bother worrying about people on drugs that are driving on our roads?”
A clearly disingenuous question!
Griff
/ 4th May 2018If the saliva test picks up actually use in the time frame relevant to driving and its backed with enough evidence I support it as a better system than some cops insinuation that you are impaired
I am against random roadside testing.
It is a breach of rights.
They presently test thousands of innocent persons in the hope of picking up one driver who has drunk alcohol.
The right of those thousands to go about their business unimpeded are more important than the minimal effect of random testing has on drugged driving.
PartisanZ
/ 4th May 2018Targeted kerbside or even parking-lot testing, on the other hand, immediately outside taverns, nightclub areas and ‘hospitality zones’ (or whatever they call public booze-up locations nowadays), along with many sports stadiums, is another matter altogether, very much to be desired and encouraged …
Griff
/ 4th May 2018With out doupt alcohol use while driving is asking for an accident.
However the result of our overly strict rules on alcohol use and driving has a negative effect on social cohesion.
The loss of clubs pubs and social places is evident throughout NZ .Cozzie clubs, RSA’s, country pubs and bowling clubs are closing as result of the loss of revenue from alcohol sales and loss pf patrons.
This is not beneficial to our cultural landscape.
As an Aspie I don’t personally enjoy such places however I do recognize that for many they are an important part of their social interaction.
Bloody tweety birds .
Fantail flying around in side quite happy .
It just sat on the window sill looking out and decided it was more fun to do another circuit of the house.
PartisanZ
/ 4th May 2018“Social cohesion” …
Perhaps that was also fostered by people going to 268 alcohol related road fatality funerals in 1990 as compared to 80 in 2016?
Those many clubs you cite may be dying due to other reasons too? Workingmen’s Clubs?
PartisanZ
/ 4th May 2018You need working men to have Workingmen’s Clubs …
Gezza
/ 4th May 2018Muldoon was extremely unlucky there wasn’t a legal requirement for alcohol impairment testing before any announcement of a General Election. Just saying. 🤔
NOEL
/ 4th May 2018Gee I thought he had a speech impediment that night.
Gezza
/ 4th May 2018His companions seemed to be suffering from depression but smiling bravely through it. I think there may have even been the odd heart attack.
NOEL
/ 4th May 2018https://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/100964671/mike-yardley-its-time-to-introduce-roadside-tests-for-drug-drivers-in-new-zealand
Griff
/ 4th May 2018CANNABIS USE AND DRIVING
Evidence Review
Canadian Drug Policy Coalition (CDPC)
Simon Fraser University
DATE:March 2 ,7, 2017
0.05bac is our new low alcohol limit.
Driving while stoned is as safe as driving under the New Zealand limit for alcohol.
Due to the difference in the way cannabis effect you and the fact that cannabis users over compensate for being high by driving slower and more carefully.
The anti stoned driving rhetoric is no different to the other evidence lacking propaganda from anti cannabis sources .
PartisanZ
/ 4th May 2018Tau … toko!!!
PartisanZ
/ 4th May 2018It’ll be SO GOOD when we’re all micro-chipped and our alcohol and drug impairment levels can be constantly monitored by the Central Security & Surveillance Computer … along with most everything else about us …
Zedd
/ 4th May 2018Ross’s bill is more about adding to the ‘toolkit of zero-tolerance’ to illegal drugs; there is a large amount of evidence that shows that whilst these tests, do show use (within a few days ?) they do NOT necassarily prove intoxication while driving.
There was a similar issue raised about ‘workplace drug testing’ which also showed ‘traces’ of illegal drugs in urine/blood, but again these ‘traces’ were shown to be days/weeks old in some cases. Traces of cannabinoids have been found to stay in the body, for weeks, whereas alcohol only stays for hours.
There was a case in Australia, of a teacher who was suspended from work, after a random test came back positive for cannabis. He engaged a lawyer & took it to court, it was proved the test was flawed, the teacher claimed he had only ‘inhaled second hand smoke’ at a social gathering. The judge agreed this was feasible & his suspension was reversed !
Zedd
/ 4th May 2018“I tried it man.. but I didn’t inhale !” (ex-POTUS, BC) 😀
Kitty Catkin
/ 4th May 2018Many people don’t inhale their first cigarette, so it’s credible that someone who wanted to look cool would puff but not inhale a joint. I remember getting away with not inhaling ciggy smoke for a while until someone drew attention to it 😦