Bill Authorises Additives

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32047, 23 July 1969, Page 30

Bill Authorises Additives

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, July 22.

, A Transport Amendment Bill, introduced in Parliament today and expected to be passed through all stages this week, will authorise the addition of preservatives or anti - coagulants to blood specimens taken from suspected drinking drivers.

It corrects a situation in which one magistrate recently decided that the addition of any such substance to a blood sample, taken for bloodalcohol testing, was not permitted by existing law. The magistrate declined to accept evidence of the analysis, although other magistrates have since admitted evidence of the analyses of blood samples containing additives. The bill deems it always to have been permissible to add such substances to blood

samples—but protects the rights of parties under existing judgments or on appeal from existing judgments. A statement in an analyst’s certificate that no deterioration or congealing of blood samples sufficient to prevent proper analysis has occurred will, under the bill, be adequate evidence of that fact unless a defendant driver requires the analyst to be called as a witness at the hearing. Introducing the bill, the Minister of Transport (Mr Gordon) said it was aimed at overcoming an apparent anomaly in the law. Anti-coagulants were added to prevent deterioration of specimens before analysis, he said.

The Opposition's legal spokesman, Dr A. M. Finlay (Waitakere) agreed that it was desirable that the law should be elucidated. The bill was given a first reading.