Law gets tough on criminal cabbies

All convicted murderers and serious sex offenders will be banned from driving taxis if Parliament accepts the recommendation of a select committee regarding the Land Transport Amendment Bill.

Parliament's transport and industrial relations committee this week reported the bill back to Parliament with several changes.

Under the original bill anyone convicted in New Zealand of murder or a sex offence punishable by more than seven years' prison - from the date the bill was passed - would have been banned from operating taxis.

Those convicted before the law was passed would have escaped the ban.

But the committee has recommended widening the scope of the ban to include anyone convicted before the law is passed, and people convicted of similar crimes overseas.

Several taxi drivers have faced charges for sex attacks on passengers in recent years. Three Wellington drivers arrested within a month of each other in the middle of last year are before the courts.

"In making the majority recommendation that the prohibition should cover all persons convicted of a specified serious offence at any time on, before, or after the commencement of the act, we balanced the competing interests of drivers ... with existing convictions, with public safety and public confidence in the passenger service industry," the report says.

The report acknowledged dissent within the committee, with the Green Party believing the amendment would unfairly discriminate against drivers who held a serious conviction, but had safely operated a taxi for the past 20 or 30 years.

The committee also recommended an increase to the maximum fine for professional drivers not keeping a log book from $25,000 to $100,000 and that maximum working hours for drivers be placed in the legislation, rather than set by regulation.

And it recommended a clause be added to the bill to ensure taxi company logos were sufficiently different. The bill will now go on Parliament's order paper to face its second reading.

- NZPA