Land Transport (Unauthorised Street and Drag Racing) Amendment Bill

I wish to bring members’ attention briefly to some amendments in my name, which are, in the immortal words of the Hon Stan Rodger, minor technical amendments. They simply improve the schedule of the bill.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Before I call the next member I would like to inform the Committee that the debate on the schedule is very narrow. It is confined to the consequential amendments set out in the schedule. Members should not range over the contents of the bill, except to the extent that these amendments are consequential to those provisions. The consideration of the schedule is not an opportunity for a summing-up debate on the bill. That happens in the debate on the third reading.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I have taken your advice and read Standing Order 139, which states that if the Speaker accepts a closure motion, the question is put on the closure and decided without amendment or debate. Can I ask you, Mr Chairperson, to consider that many of the rulings given by Chairs and Speakers in the House are based on convention. One of the simple principles that determines how Committee stages are run is that the debate be allowed to continue in a timely manner, and in a manner that allows the debate to be adequately aired.

In the past, Speakers and Chairs have deliberately not allowed the debate to be seen to be rammed through. They have exhausted the time available, to ensure that all members have been given adequate opportunity to debate the clauses and the parts in a meaningful way. Can I once again ask you to consider that in future deliberations. We have had a very short Committee stage debate on Part 2. I would hate to think, and maybe this is something that could be reflected on by yourself and Mr Speaker, that we have now set a precedent by which future Governments that appoint Chairs and Speakers might seek to truncate Oppositions’ ability to debate bills.

In the time that I have been a Government whip and an Opposition whip we have gone out of our way to ensure that the conventions are adhered to, because their implications are great. I now see a debate that has been truncated, and I suggest that the implications of that, in terms of convention, are quite serious indeed.

As a member of now 4 years’ standing I want to endorse that concern, because I need guidance on this. We have now had a warning from you in the Chair as to the relevance of debates on the schedule, in terms that imply that in some way we were discursive, repetitive, or off the point.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The Chair is not creating any precedent whatsoever. This is the normal course, and has been for quite a considerable time. I take the opportunity now to recognise that both members have made a contribution. I have heard what they had to say, and I will take it into consideration.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I understand what you have explained to us. But the dilemma I have now is that with the feeling of dissatisfaction that I have, and it has now been supported by the member from the ACT party—

💬 Sue Kedgley: And the Greens.

And the Greens now have also expressed the same concern. I know that behind the scenes there are discussions and arrangements between the Government whips and the various Opposition whips, and unofficial and informal agreements are entered into in the Business Committee, but I have not been part of any such discussions.

What I see right now is a situation that will lead to great dissatisfaction. If we are now to stick to the relevance of the schedule, there is no opportunity for the new material that has been introduced to be addressed on either the Government or the divided Opposition side of this debate. It leaves one in the position, in order to seek satisfaction, of possibly recalling the Speaker, because we in New Zealand First feel that our right to debate this issue fully and formally to a sensible conclusion has been rushed. To receive an arrogant response, which basically stated “Read 139 and sit down”, to my expression of concern is totally unacceptable if this is truly a House of Representatives and a democratic environment. I ask you to consider that and give me a sensible explanation before I am forced to consider my final option, which is to recall the Speaker.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I will deal briefly, first of all, with one of the points raised by Mr Mark towards the end of his comments. The whole issue of urgency and any agreement about questions in the coming week was discussed by the Business Committee today. It was not informal or in any way unrecorded. The whip of that party was a party to those decisions, and they will be recorded in due course.

However, having corrected Mr Mark on that issue, it has nothing to do with the issue under discussion, which, in my view, is the third occasion that the member has attempted to relitigate a ruling by the Chair. That is clearly a gross breach of the Standing Orders. He referred, in a previous comment, to the degree of contention surrounding this issue. The vote, including the way his party voted on the previous motion, shows that there is very little contention around this issue, and I think his point verges on the extremely frivolous.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I do not require any further assistance on this matter. The acceptance of the closure is entirely a matter for the Chairperson to judge in each case. Members must not seek to relitigate the ruling on the closure any further. I say to members that they are getting close to being grossly disorderly. I refer them to Standing Order 86.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I am not referring to your ruling, at all. I am raising a fresh point of order, based on the inaccurate statements made by the senior Government whip about what happened at the Business Committee. I was present at the Business Committee. As far as I was aware, the main things that were discussed at that meeting were first readings. Rushing this bill through the Committee stage was not discussed. I do not intend to take any further time, other than to correct that incorrect statement.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I thank the honourable member. I caution members that there is no need for the House to become disorderly. I think that everyone has had a fair go at making his or her point.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I seek clarification of your comments about the breadth of the debate on the schedule. I say that because it appeared to me that it could have been prompted only by a view about the debate on the earlier parts of the bill. ACT was the main subject of attack in that debate. We were not given an opportunity to address the substance. We address substance only, and in the schedule there are matters on which we will be in a difficult position if the Chair is minded to take them as relitigation of earlier points, because the form of notice in the schedule raises earlier points.

The message I got is that we are not to be in a position to defend the statements that we made and that require elaboration, because they simply became the subject of a political counter-charge. There was no attempt made by other parties to debate the issue. There was simply a torrent of abuse against ACT and its notional supporters.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I thank the honourable member. It was an observation that I had made about the nature of the schedule. The consequential amendments will allow members to voice those issues, so that does open it up a little bit.

The schedule contains the machinery with which the police will impound vehicles. The form that the police officer will hand to the driver of the car will state, among other things: “…you operated that vehicle in a race, or in an unnecessary exhibition of speed or acceleration, on a road in contravention of section 22A(1)…”. The person getting that notice will not have a clue what section 22A states. He or she will not have the faintest idea that it gives them some defence. The person getting that notice will think the police officer is saying “I seize your vehicle because I think that you accelerated unnecessarily fast.” How often is there any room for a debate about that? From the Green perspective, anyone not on a bicycle is probably going unnecessarily fast or accelerating unnecessarily; any one who is driving an 8-cylinder car instead of a 4-cylinder car is probably using unnecessary force and power.

What this does is put the police in the same position that they have been put in by being told to go out and get quotas of tickets all over the country. Instead of building their relationship with a vital section of the public—namely, the most spirited young offenders; the sort of young people who are going somewhere, whose hobby, when they are young, is to drive and work on powerful cars, and who work hard—those young people will be getting a message from the police that says: “We want your car because you accelerated unnecessarily.” What we have here is legislation that is pure camouflage. In fact, if those young people go to a lawyer, they will find that the police cannot arrest them for that.

There is a tear-jerking set of pleas about people going home and getting notices of deaths or injuries. Will the next thing that Labour attacks be people who go climbing or skydiving, or people who smoke? It has already attacked the smokers. There are many, many activities that are strictly unnecessary, and it is quite within people’s individual rights to choose to do them. [Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Running commentaries are out of order.

The justification for giving a notice under Part 2 should have been very straightforward: “You are endangering other people who have not consented to run that risk.”

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Please do not bring the Chair into the debate.

The notice should have stated, and I quote: “You are breaking the law, driver.” The notice uses the form “you”; I have no option but to use that terminology. It should have stated: “You have broken the law. You have put others at risk.” But it should not be directed to people who have simply chosen to risk themselves, because that is a right that every New Zealander with any spirit should be trying to protect.

This is pitiful law. This is slogan law. It puts the police into a position in which the result can only be that another group is against them. This law is absolutely typical of the meaningless law that Labour promotes instead of dealing with law and order. This schedule should be amending the penalties for giving the fingers to a court order. This bill says that Labour regards the Attorney-General as a wally. This schedule allows seizure that the Labour Attorney-General has correctly said is utterly inappropriate and unjustified. What it does could easily have been done by enhancing the powers to enforce ordinary court orders, to make sure that the police are tackling the people they are too scared of. How many really menacing folk will have their cars seized under this legislation? It will be the same as the people with menacing dogs; this Government will pass a law against dogs that really hits only the inoffensive—the people who volunteer to submit to the law. The really gross offenders—the people whom this Government sucks up to and curries favour with—will thumb their noses at this law in the same way that those people do who just do not bother to pay their fines under this Government. There are $457 million of fines owing.

As the member of Parliament for Nelson, I want to put on the record my support for the schedule. I invite the member who has just spoken to reflect on the practical situation in three areas of my own electorate, in Branford Park—[Interruption] Get a life, mate! I just ask the members opposite to be a little more mature and allow a member to participate in the debate without being interjected on with smart alec comments.

I invite the member who has just spoken to come to Branford Park and say that the police are able to confiscate a vehicle only when there is endangerment of life. I have a group of 300 people who live in that particular valley who time after time, including this last weekend, have put up with boy racers destroying their quality of life. I ask the member who spoke before me whether we have to wait until lives are in danger for those people to have peace of mind. If the people in the Matai Valley in Nelson wound up the noise of a stereo, causing noise harm, then the law of the land says that the police can remove the cause of that noise.

💬 Stephen Franks: This doesn’t touch it.

I tell the member that the noise is coming from the tyres squealing. I happen to know the practical effect of this. Mr Franks is incorrect.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I bring the member back to the schedule.

The schedule deals with the issue of the notice that is to be given to those motorists.

💬 Hon Member: Read the bill.

I have read it. I invite ACT members to come to Branford Park with the police who are dealing with the real, practical situation. [Interruption] I listened to the member with some dignity; why does he not just sit up and listen for a bit to a local member of Parliament who actually listens to his constituents and knows what goes on?

Right now, the police have tried their very best to deal with these problems. I have confidence that our police, with the powers in this bill, will be able to hit boy racers where it hurts—by serving this notice on them and taking their cars from them—because residents deserve to live in peace. I do not want them to have to wait the 4, 6, or 8 weeks for the matter to go to a court hearing. Whether people live in Branford Park, Victoria Heights, or Waimea Road, this Parliament has to err on the side of the law being in their favour. That is why I say that the provisions in the schedule are quite sensible.

The second thing I want to say is that the Law and Order Committee did a good job. It made these measures align with the Summary Proceedings Act; that is provided for in the schedule. To me, it is perfectly sensible to have the same set of provisions apply to boy racers as apply to drink-drivers, and as apply to those who have their licences confiscated and repeatedly drive. It is perfectly sensible to put the boy racers on exactly the same basis. We should hit them where it hurts and take their cars off them. The notice that is provided for in the schedule is pretty sensible. I think they will get the message, and that it will make the difference. I think it will need to be combined with some other local initiatives in each of our communities. It is not a magic bullet. It is not all of the answer, but it is a large part of it.

I challenge the ACT party. I appreciate its academic, legal argument, but those members should be practical. In the practical, real-life situation out there in real world New Zealand these are the sorts of provisions we need for the police to be able to get on and do their job.

The last thing I have to say is that I have great confidence in our boys in blue. [Interruption] I have great confidence in him too; he is going to be a great Prime Minister. Unlike that party over there and unlike that member over there, this party consistently backs the police. Those members are fair-weather friends. We back the police consistently, because we have confidence in them. I know that they will use these provisions sensibly so that the communities in my electorate that have been terrorised by irresponsible boy racers will see them dealt to.

💬 Darren Hughes: Enjoy your retirement.

Long after that member has begun his! It is pity that members opposite do not want to address the schedule and the issue we are debating. They want to play political games. The reason I will be here long after that member has gone is that I focus on the job and on looking after my constituents, not on playing silly political games.

I welcome the chairman’s comments about the wideness of this debate, and his recognition that the schedule contains elements that should allow us to expand the debate into Part 2 in particular. I want to make one point. One of the things I like about this bill is that it restores to the men and women in blue who work on the front lines—

💬 Darren Hughes: Come on!

It is a bit sad when young members come to the House and display their contempt and arrogance. Hopefully, in time they will grow up. I hope the young man learns. Particularly when Opposition parties are trying to support the Government, a little bit of magnanimity in victory is always a quality that is admired. Arrogance, contempt, and puerile behaviour are not. [Interruption] There he goes; grow up, young man!

One of the things I like about this bill is that it returns to the men and women who police our streets one thing that has been lost over recent years—that is, the ability to use a little discretion. Although some parties look at some of the wording in the schedule, and in the purpose clause in Part 1 in particular, and say that it is too broad and too vague, I look at it in a positive sense and say that this bill gives some discretion to the police. I remember the day when policemen and policewomen had the ability to look at a situation, and decide that it was high jinks or nonsense and that a kick in the butt and a twist of the ear would likely set a young fellow on a straight path. I thank the member on the other side for his nod; it is encouraging. Such treatment would set a young fellow on the straight and narrow again, without blemishing his record. But we have got into template law, and I have to say that our friends in the legal fraternity make their money out of defining each and every little aspect of law. That is how they make their money. It actually hamstrings the boys in blue.

The Greens can say that it is a breach of human rights, and I am pleased I am hearing that from them, because it is consistent with what they always say. I will never agree with them, but they are consistent. But what I like in this bill is the discretion that is open to an officer. If it is a flaw, if members want to say that it opens the law up to vagueness and ambiguity, well, I would rather put my confidence in the men and women in blue to make the right judgment.

I do acknowledge that the bill provides for the ability to appeal, and to appeal further again, if people feel they have been unjustly treated by the police. That is a good thing, and I congratulate the Government and the Law and Order Committee on putting it in the bill. But I say do not chuck the whole bill out, based on the belief that it is too vague. I welcome the ability for officers to look at a situation where a car has spun its wheels and gone away from the lights, and say: “Well, that’s just a person of a particular ethnicity who can’t drive, and has actually dropped the clutch.”, or: “That’s a hoon who is spinning his tyres to get away in a race.” That is the sort of discretion the police need on the streets to get common sense into law enforcement. I am pleased that it is there.

The only thing I am not comfortable with I will put on the record now. I will support this bill going through the House, but I will watch it. If in time I am not happy, then I will come back to the House with amendments, either via another bill or by amending the legislation when we are in Government. [Interruption] I do not believe we should be confiscating for 28 days the cars of people who have offended three times. We should not impound the cars; we should confiscate them—end of story.

💬 Clayton Cosgrove: If they do it twice in 4 years the car is confiscated.

I understand it now. That is the sort of assurance I wanted. At the end of the day, there are those people who continue to push the outside edge of the envelope, and they never learn. That assurance has to be in there. I did not see it in the bill, so if the member wants to take a 5-minute call and explain it to us all, that would be very satisfying. The confiscation for 28 days and the $3,000 fine are good things, and the form seems to be fine, and in that respect we will continue our support for the bill. But we will be watching over time. I will be listening to the cops.

One of the things I do like about the form is that it is very brief. When I talk to police, I hear too much about the endless forms they have to fill out, keeping them off the beat for hours on end. The paper war is a distinct worry in the police force, and it is good to see that we are down to something more manageable.

I would like to address my comments to the schedule, and in particular to Part 2. I would like to begin by thanking Dr Smith for his contribution. He is always consistent when we are discussing these kinds of issues. He flagrantly and consistently has no regard for the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. He showed that with his attitude to the Local Government Act, and he is showing it with his attitude to this bill. At least he is consistent, and we should recognise that.

Dr Smith invited us to go to Branford Park to check out the hooning that is happening there. Once again, at the risk of boring the Committee, I remind the Committee that there is adequate legislation available right now for policing this kind of behaviour. It is called the Transport Act, and it includes charging people with reckless or careless driving. Dr Smith said that he could not wait for the courts to make a finding that a vehicle should be confiscated there and then. But what he was talking about is summary justice. If we cannot allow ourselves to wait for the proper procedures of law to take place, for a person to be found guilty of an offence before being punished for that offence, then we are sadly lacking as a Parliament.

This bill puts all people at risk, not just hoons or whatever name we want to use to scapegoat these people. If we look at Part 2 of the schedule, at the form that will be given to people when the police are seizing and impounding their vehicles, we see that it reiterates what we saw in Part 2 of the bill—that is, if an officer believes on reasonable grounds that a person has operated a vehicle “in an unnecessary exhibition of speed or acceleration”, he or she can, and will, confiscate the vehicle. The words “unnecessary exhibition of speed or acceleration” are very telling. We have been told repeatedly that this bill is about safety and protecting people, but when we look at the reasons that are given for confiscating a vehicle, we see that there is nothing about safety there. There is nothing about protecting the public. It is about an “unnecessary exhibition of speed or acceleration”.

💬 Clayton Cosgrove: Which is unsafe!

It does not state “unsafe”. That member should read the bill. It states “unnecessary exhibition of speed or acceleration”. It does not state “dangerous speed” or “dangerous acceleration”. It simply states that if people break the law and they accelerate unnecessarily, the police can confiscate their vehicles. As I have already said, it is not only certain members of the public who are in danger of being caught by this; the bill potentially puts everyone in danger.

Ron Mark talked about the need for the police to have discretion. New Zealand First is a party that talks about one law for all, but what he was talked about was the ability to have one law for some and one law for others. That is not acceptable.

I would like to reiterate the comments made by my colleague Stephen Franks. He made some very good points. Once again, he made the point clearly that this bill is not about safety or protecting the public; it is about creating powers for the police that can be used in draconian and unnecessary ways. Also, let me reiterate that if the police are concerned about these kinds of behaviours, they should use the powers available to them under the Transport Act. Those powers allow someone to be charged, they carry jail sentences as their maximum penalties, and they allow the courts to confiscate vehicles—not just impound them. But this Committee is saying that it cannot be bothered with judicial process, with evidence, or with the need to prove a case. It would rather give the police the ability to impound a vehicle without their having to prove their case to anyone, because all they need is reasonable grounds to believe that someone has broken the law. That is entirely inadequate.

Who do people appeal to? They appeal to the police. They appeal to the body that confiscated their vehicles in the first place. How can we expect an impartial consideration of the fairness of that impounding?

I move, That the question be now put.

I again address the schedule of this bill. I ask the Minister in the chair to show us where in this piece of legislation it deals with repeat offenders. I cannot see it anywhere.

I add to that that Dr Nick Smith should go back to the 300 people in his electorate he talked about who say they welcome this bill, and tell them to be very, very afraid. If people speed, they will no longer run the risk of just being fined; they will run the risk of having their cars taken off them.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: Nonsense!

It is absolutely not nonsense. If the Minister looks at the schedule, she will see that the notice advises the driver: “I am seizing and impounding ... the motor vehicle ... for 28 days because I believe, on reasonable grounds ... you operated that vehicle in ... an unnecessary exhibition of speed or acceleration,”. The only condition on that is that it was speed that was outside the parameters of the law. There is nothing in this bill that directs it to boy racers. Lianne Dalziel said that was nonsense. She may well remember when a Labour Minister said “Take the bikes off the bikies!”. There is nothing in this piece of legislation that protects people from not being simply fined for breaking the speed limit but having their vehicles taken off them and impounded. When I asked the Minister of Transport to take a call to explain where in this legislation it protects those people, he did not take the call and he did not explain. I presume from that that there is nothing to protect those people. The National Party, in its haste to pass this legislation, is prepared to let this schedule go through that extends the powers of the police to such—

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: Be tough on law and order!

I am tough on law and order. I am tough on people who break the law. I do not agree with extending the powers of the police to people who they “believe” might be breaking the law. That is the crucial difference. It is an essential piece of liberal democracy that people are innocent until proven guilty, and this legislation makes people guilty until they can prove themselves innocent. Under this schedule—in the notice, under the heading “ADVICE TO DRIVERS”—the police just have to say, in effect: “I’m impounding your vehicle because I believe I have reasonable grounds to believe that you have used unnecessary acceleration or speed.”

While we are on the subject of unnecessary acceleration and speed, I note that Clayton Cosgrove can show very great acceleration in speed when he is running away from television cameras.

💬 Hon Member: Why was he running away from the television cameras?

He was worried about his secretary. The Attorney-General has alerted this Parliament to the fact that this schedule is in breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Either the Government’s own Attorney-General is wrong, or her colleagues are wrong. Both cannot be right. Some of us, in drafting laws, take the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act into account. We may not agree with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, but we do not flout the law just because we think it is wrong. But this Government is absolutely flouting the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act with this schedule. I say to all those people who are so happy to give the police more powers that the ACT party and the Green Party were the only parties that moved to reduce the powers of the police in the Local Government Act; all the other parties were happy to increase the powers of the police. I say to those members that they will have to explain to their constituents when they go to them and say: “Because of this schedule—the notice giving advice to drivers—I’ve had my car taken off me for 28 days. I can’t get it back, and I haven’t even been convicted of anything.”

I move, That the question be now put.

Mr Chairman—

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairman. My colleague Ron Mark won the call but I make this request, with the good nature of the Committee. An interaction occurred between Mr Mark and Mr Cosgrove about a vehicle being confiscated, in the event of there being more than one offence, under a 28-day notice. A substantive, very reasoned point has been raised by Mr Mark; I think it is reasonable that Mr Swain, the Minister in the chair, Mr Cosgrove, or one of the other Government members provide some explanation, rather than us just simply rolling on. I ask a Government member to take a call and provide some explanation.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): No. It is up to the Minister or the member to reply, if they so wish.

I thank the Hon Dr Nick Smith for that comment. I did take the opportunity to confer with the Minister and with Mr Cosgrove. When one goes back to the original bill as drafted, one sees that it was very prescriptive in terms of offences and the sentences that might have been available to be used by the judiciary.

What does get a little confusing is that when one reads through Part 1 of the schedule, one sees that it specifies the amendments to the Sentencing Act. That legislation is a timely jogger, because it serves to remind us how far we have progressed with some of the land transport safety law, and gave me cause to go back a little further and remind myself of what happened in 1998. Many of the Acts we are now using to supplement and complement this legislation are ones we have passed previously, and that is what I was reminded of. So I say to the Committee, is it not curious how far we have come?

I congratulate the Labour Party—I really do. The heart and soul of the effectiveness of this bill lies in the ability, within the schedule, of the police to be able to impound vehicles. That is the deterrent. That is the punitive measure. The next step, for those recidivist offenders who just cannot get their heads around it and learn from the first time, is to confiscate the vehicles, sell them, and recover that money into the coffers. It might help ACT party members to know that those outstanding fines they have talked about all through the evening, might in some way be addressed through the sale of those confiscated vehicles, which belonged to the recidivist offenders who could not get it into their thick skulls that burning out at McLeans Island is totally unacceptable and will not be tolerated any more. But we would never have got to this point without the Labour Party—or, at least, without elements of it—accepting that this bill is necessary. At this point in time it is timely to remind the Committee of how far that party has come, because on 5 November 1998 the Labour Party voted against the impoundment of vehicles. That was legislation put up by New Zealand First.

Clayton Cosgrove does not know how far he has moved his party. Senior Cabinet Ministers, who have passed over him for positions of higher authority, higher salary, and all the perks and privileges, voted against the very principles he advanced to this Parliament. That says a lot for the member. It also says a heck of a lot about his senior colleagues who gave countless speeches—they are in the Hansard volumes I have here—and on 5 November voted against the Land Transport Bill, which gave provision for the impounding of—

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: Tell me why—read it out.

The Minister who is so highly paid can stand, take a 5-minute call, and tell us all the reason. I will just point out that the Ayes were 72, and the Noes were 48. Labour voted 37 against the bill, the Alliance voted 10 against the bill, and some other chap by the name of Kirton voted against the bill. It was the passing of that bill that finally gave the police the powers to impound vehicles, and now we are going to the next logical, sensible step in respect of hoons, boy racers, clowns, and idiots on the road, who would burn up their tyres and create public nuisance and public disturbance.

Once again, I thank Mr Swain, the Minister, and Clayton Cosgrove for pointing out that the Sentencing Act contains that area, but maybe the Minister would like to stand and take a call merely to clarify for us all, and again help the Committee to understand, why Labour voted against the impounding of vehicles in 1998. Lianne Dalziel is obviously very upset by the whole thing, despite the fact that she voted against that bill. It would probably help us all to become a little more enlightened once again. I know what the Hansard record says, but if there is a new, modern-day reason, Labour members should feel free to tell us what it is.

I move, That the question be now put.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I might be too late, but I have been looking at the legislation in respect of—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): No—I am reporting now.

Regarding the legislation dealing with impounding vehicles, I noticed that the Greens and ACT voted for it last time. I wonder whether they are confused. Maybe they might like to recast their votes.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): That is not a point of order.

Bill reported with amendment.

Third Reading