IR-01-25-11479
15 April 2025
F Cook
[FYI request #30534 email]
Dear F Cook
Thank you for your Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) request of 26 March 2025 in which
you requested:
I note that the previously published impaired driving instructions is detailed as
phase 1, can I please be provided phase 2
https://www.police.govt.nz/sites/default/files/publications/phase-1-impaired-
driving-police-instructions-as-of-20-03-2023.pdf
Phase 2 was previously requested however it was noted that further amendments
to legislation were required prior. These amendments have now passed their
third reading and wil commence no later than the 1st of April 2026.
If Phase 2 is not yet published for frontline staff, can either the details on the draft
of this document, or the draft itself be provided in place, noting that the document
would be understood as not yet in use but with the assumption that it wil take
effect when the amendments take effect and the oral detection devices are
available.
If no draft document is available, can it please be detailed when this is expected
to be available. Additional y if no draft document is available, I would like to
extend this request to obtaining that document once it is published, noting that
this may require an extended period of time, if it is so, can the responses to this
request please be returned independent of each other.
Additionally can it be noted if there are additional phases for this document
planned for the near future?
Updates to the ‘Impaired driving’ instruction to include roadside drug testing capability are
currently under development and consideration. To date, these updates have been
dependent on the final form of the legislation and remain dependent on the outcomes of
the procurement process for suitable oral fluid screening devices.
As the draft instruction is subject to further substantive refinement, it has been withheld
under section 9(2)(g)(i) of the OIA to maintain the effective conduct of public affairs
through the free and frank expression of opinions by or between employees of any public
service agency or organisation in the course of their duty.
Police National Headquarters 180 Molesworth Street. PO Box 3017, Wellington 6140, New Zealand.
Telephone: 04 474 9499. Fax: 04 498 7400. www.police.govt.nz
Police is working to have the roadside drug testing regime in place before the end of
2025. Police also acknowledges the public interest in roadside drug testing and intends to
publish an updated ‘Impaired driving’ instruction on the Police website ahead of the
regime going live.
There are no further implementation phases that follow the rol out of the roadside drug
testing regime.
If you are not satisfied with the way I have responded to your request, you have the right
under section 28(3) of the OIA to ask the Ombudsman to review my decisions.
Information on how to do this is available online at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz.
Yours sincerely
Superintendent Steve Greally
Director: Road Policing
New Zealand Police
