Land Transport (Unauthorised Street and Drag Racing) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Land Transport (Unauthorised Street and Drag Racing) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. Sometimes Parliament comes together in a united way and does the right thing, and it has done that today. Sometimes Parliament acts to address a public concern and does the right thing, and it has done that today. Sometimes there is a practical solution to a social problem, and today we have found that solution. I think it is good that the House has shown incredible common sense by enabling this legislation to move forward.

The bill needed some leadership, and it had that from Clayton Cosgrove, the MP for Waimakariri. We do need somebody who is able to take up an issue, bring it to the House, and steer it through. He has done that, and we should all be thankful. A bill like this needs community support, and that has been demonstrated up and down New Zealand. Of course, it also needs Parliament’s support, and it got that, by and large, from most parties. The great exception during the evening was the grand coalition between the ACT party and the Green Party—the coalition made in hell. The “New Liberal Party” is what I think it could be called. There was probably too much psychedelic puha drifting across the cross benches, and it has got in the way of some clear thought from the ACT party. As far as the Green Party is concerned, I note that it parades itself around as having philosophy and principle—and the Greens do have those qualities. There is no question about it. But sometimes the Greens are going to have to work out that there are competing rights to consider when one comes to this House. It is not always about the rights of the criminal. The victims and the people who go about their normal daily business in New Zealand have rights, too. Sooner or later the Greens will have to wake up and find out that sometimes we have to do the common-sense thing. Sometimes we have to support victims of crime, as well. If not, the Greens will continue to stay on the fringe and be recognised as a bit of a “loony tunes” around the edges, and they will never get beyond the 5 or 6 percent polling that they currently have.

I come now to the ACT party members. What an extraordinary performance from them! In May last year, before the last election, Ken Shirley supported the introduction of this bill. Not only did he support it but he fulsomely said that ACT supported the introduction of this bill. He said that ACT welcomes tougher measures to deal with illegal street drag racing, and that, indeed, this bill is in keeping with ACT’s campaign—wait for it—for zero tolerance of crime. Now, less than 12 months later, Mr Franks and Ms Coddington have come to the House and said that they are opposed to the bill. Ken Shirley, who I always thought was a more sensible, common-sense, down-to-earth kind of person, has been rolled by a couple of liberal lawyer types who want to talk about legal niceties. They want to talk about outrage, presumably because lawyers are not going to get such a good deal out of this bill, and they want to go on about the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. It is all in the waffle, in the ether, and it is part and parcel of this new-look, liberal ACT Party. What it shows is that the ACT party is in absolute meltdown. It cannot sort out how many people it is voting for, and it cannot work out where its electorate offices should be based. ACT is a party in meltdown, and its performance tonight will be shown. There is going to be some great interest when we start mailing out the speeches made by Mr Franks and Ms Coddington to ACT supporters.

💬 Stephen Franks: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I understand that this is the debate on the third reading of the “boy racer” bill. I have not heard any reference to it, or about any provisions in it, for some time.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I thank the member for raising that point.

I was simply pointing out that ACT supported this bill when it was introduced to Parliament, and talked about zero tolerance. Those members from the ACT party who spoke to oppose the bill walked away from it and from zero tolerance. There is no question about that. That is why they will not be around this place for much longer, and I say “good riddance” to them. This bill is a very, very good bill. I congratulate the House. I also want to congratulate the United Future party, because it was the party that pushed for progress on the bill, and I want to give it some credit for that. I particularly want to congratulate the MP for Waimakariri, Clayton Cosgrove, who went into an area where no one had ever been before, did the hard yards, did the work, and came up with legislation that Parliament has supported. I urge its continued support through the House.

It is a pleasure to be able to speak on the third reading of the bill. I say, for the record, that I am proud to be a member of a select committee that was prepared to stand up and do the right thing—to deal with a problem that is endemic across this country and is causing distress to tens of thousands of New Zealanders.

I find it ironic that the ACT party, which says it is the party of zero tolerance, would not support this legislation. That party has let its supporters down. [Interruption] Labour members cannot escape this, either. In November 1998 Mr Swain and some of his colleagues voted against impounding vehicles, and now he is standing up and grandstanding. Politics is about integrity. I am confused, however, about the Greens and ACT coalition. I have respected ACT in the past and I still do, but with this small exception—because ACT is generally a party of integrity. I am not surprised about the Greens one little bit.

I want to acknowledge the part that Clayton Cosgrove played in dealing with this issue, because he put politics aside and dealt with a governance issue. He raised the debate to a level where New Zealanders and their concerns came first, and I respect him for that. However, I think it only fair to point out that the legislation was dramatically redrafted in the select committee, and the members of the select committee should also take a pat on the back.

I also acknowledge the part that my colleague Gerry Brownlee played in getting this bill on the Order Paper. If it were not for his ability in the House to take the issue head on, I doubt that it would have got this level of support.

The legislation is well considered. It was modelled on the New South Wales legislation, and it works. I am glad that we have taken the time to learn from it. I am not saying for a moment that we can pick up legislation from someone else’s country and impose it on ours as a model, but at least we took the key components of that legislation. Now there is something with which we can say to the people of New Zealand who are concerned about boy racers and loutish activities: “Here is something for our police to grab hold of, so that they can enforce the law.” Our police have been telling us for some time that if we want the issue dealt with, we should give them the legislation that will allow them to do something about it.

I am not concerned about the civil libertarians who stand up and say that we are using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. I say to them: “Tough!” The people of New Zealand have had a gutsful. They have petitioned me and other members of this Parliament in their droves, saying: “Please, help us. Please deal with this problem so that we can sleep in our beds at night and are not disturbed by this loutish behaviour.” The people of New Zealand want to be able to sleep in their beds without being concerned that their property is being damaged. As law-abiding citizens, they do not want to be concerned that out of utter frustration, they will have to take the law into our own hands. It is a problem that stretches the length and breadth of this country, and I am proud to say that I was prepared to stand up with colleagues in this House and deal with the issue. I am just dumfounded by the actions of ACT.

💬 Hon Chris Carter: So is the nation.

In my view, on this issue they have every right to be. I have made the statement before and I am going to make it again: the Government needs to accept that it has dragged its feet on this issue. In particular, Dr Cullen displayed arrogant disregard for tens of thousands of New Zealanders who were desperately concerned about their standard of living, and about this loutish behaviour. They asked, through me, whether the Government could bump this bill up the Order Paper. Dr Cullen’s response was to say no, which tells me and those people that he was absolutely out of touch with what is happening across New Zealand in respect of this issue. It is something that we needed to deal with. Thankfully, my colleagues and I directed people who approached us back to Dr Cullen by phone or email, and to be fair to Dr Cullen—I give him the benefit of the doubt—he has responded in a positive way, and that is why we are now debating this bill under urgency. The issue, though, is that people have since died, and that probably did not need to happen.

Boy racers are not just 18-year-old thugs. Generally, they are aged from 25 to 30. Their life savings—and their student loans, as someone has added—are invested in the vehicles they have throbbing under their bums, and the only way to deal with this loutish behaviour is to hurt them by taking away their vehicles. If that sounds tough, then I say: “Too bad!” This is a problem that the people of New Zealand are just not in a mood to tolerate any longer, and we are prepared to stand up and help them. The life savings of these boy racers are invested in their vehicles, and the evidence from what has happened in New South Wales and other jurisdictions across the globe is that if we want to add a real deterrent that will make these people take notice, then we need to impound their vehicles. Taking away licences and giving fines does not take the cars off the road. The loutish behaviour continues, and no one is better off.

A huge number of submitters came to the select committee, and in overwhelming numbers they said: “Please help us.” District councils, city councils, and members of the public said: “Please help us.” Nick Smith has already spoken of some. I could mention people in Ashburton and West Milton, in particular, and people in other centres around Auckland. The Manukau City Council was frustrated to the point of distraction. It has bent over backwards trying to do innumerable things to give these people an outlet to express their passion for their vehicles, but it all came to nowt. Do members know why? Those boy racers were not concerned about driving vehicles; they were concerned about upsetting members of the public, being more than a nuisance, and engaging in criminal activity to a point where they were driving people to distraction. People going about their lawful business were stopped on roads at 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning and could not get through. The congestion caused by hundreds of people gathering was more than just a public nuisance—it was horrific. People feel threatened. People have died. How much more do we need to take before the issue is dealt with? That is why my colleagues in the National Party are quite clear about what our duty is around this issue. We have listened to the people of New Zealand, and we are prepared to take action. Accordingly, the National Party strongly endorses this legislation.

I would like to finish by saying that I acknowledge the way that members of the select committee worked together to deal with an issue that is of critical importance to people right across the country. I also want to say that, generally, I respect the way that the House has dealt with this issue this afternoon and evening. Despite hiding behind technicalities, it gives me hope that we are prepared to stand up and do the right thing.

New Zealand politics is seemingly no longer a line from left to right, but a circle. Who would have imagined the Greens and ACT together! That ACT wakes up with the Greens in its bed should have alerted it to just how wrong it was. Could anyone imagine Deborah Coddington and Nandor Tanczos in agreement about anything, let alone a position against the rights of the law-abiding, against the demands of the police, and against ACT’s supposed law and order priority? Ranting by the Green-ACT double act about people being innocent until proven guilty flies in the face of preventive policing. The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act has been dredged up time and time again, but whose rights are we talking about? It has been mentioned once or twice in the House that the rights of the public, who have every legal right to be on the road, and the rights of the boy racers themselves—whose health we are trying to protect, and whose deaths we are trying to prevent—are part and parcel of this issue. They take precedence over the property rights—and nothing more than property rights—that the ACT party, in particular, is trying to uphold.

If people look like they are about to commit a crime, that should be enough for us to jump in and prevent it. Is the “ACT-Green Party” suggesting that we wait for the body to drop before we do something about it? The Greens have suggested that the law is not the issue; it is the resourcing of the police. It might come as a surprise to the Greens, but no matter how well-resourced the police are, it is the laws that dictate the rules of the game. I suggest that members spend a night in a squad car and see the kinds of things that the police have to deal with night after night. Those who place the rights of these thugs on wheels above the rights of the community, the law-abiding and responsible drivers—like ACT and the Greens seem to do—are not the ones who will be there to pick up the pieces. That will be left to our hospitals, our police, and the families who lose their loved ones. When we put property rights first—car property rights—before the rights of people, as ACT seems to have done, we have lost our way.

The demand for this bill comes not only from the police, who are sick and tired of being undermined by inadequate laws, but also from communities that are fed up with living with excessive noise, abusive behaviour, and smoke from burn-outs—to say nothing of the injuries and death that accompany illegal drag racing. It is endemic. That is why there has been a call for action. The ACT party, which has stood as the party of influence and zero tolerance for crime, is now joining its new-found “buddies”, the Greens, in opposing a bill that has the capacity to prevent the crimes associated with these thugs on wheels. It will have a deterrent effect, and allow communities to reclaim their roads and save lives.

We will support this bill, and we will support it speedily. We again thank Clayton Cosgrove, and both National and New Zealand First, for their efforts. We thank the select committee, which put teeth into the bill and ensured that the initial idea from Clayton Cosgrove was brought to fruition. Let us hope that this bill saves lives. That is its importance and its significance, and that is the reason we want to see it passed now.

It has been a very interesting evening. I guess that is the great thing about having a bill come in and the House being able to go through each stage immediately and wrap it all up in an evening, because we actually see the whole thing played out over a matter of hours. There is a great deal more satisfaction seeing that than having things dragged out over weeks at different sittings. This whole bill has been great.

What is the need for this bill? Why is it here? It is here because, frankly, New Zealanders across the country have said “Enough!” It does not matter whether we are talking about the problem up in Auckland, in Tauranga, in Hawke’s Bay, in Nelson, in Christchurch, or in Gore—and, by crikey, we do not have to think too hard about Gore and the loss of life we have seen down there—the problem of boy racers, hoons, and street racers has been with us far too long. There is no more tolerance for it—end of story. People want it resolved, and Mr Cosgrove has brought the matter to the House.

In the third reading, I need to give the Minister and his Cabinet a bit of a flick around the ears, because it is sad, and an indictment on the Labour Party and the Labour Government, that it took Gerry Brownlee forcing the issue by a motion to the floor to have Clayton Cosgrove’s member’s bill brought forward to No. 1 on the Government Order Paper. Otherwise, we would still be sitting here talking about the bill and wondering when it was going to be passed. Regardless of all the rhetoric about saving lives and the number of people killed, maimed, and injured, this Government sat on its hands for over 2 years, happy to see the bill languishing in the lottery draw, with the member, being a good party member, very frustrated and wondering why he was not getting the backing from his tough-talking Ministers on law and order. That should not be forgotten, but it is history, and the bill is here today. Why is it here? It is here because people like myself who own property in the McLeans Island area, in the same area as Brian Connell’s constituents, have had a gutsful of the antics of boy racers and their illegal activities on the road.

I want to talk about the issue of pouring diesel on to a road. There is a corner out the back of McLeans Island, at the intersection of McLeans Island Road, Buchanans Road, and a gravel road called Miner’s Groyne. That corner is a sweeping corner, and with these people running illegal burnouts at that corner, it was only a matter of time before the diesel that had soaked into the road and mixed with a downpour of rain, was going to cause an accident—and it did. Days after the burnout activities, a lady going through that corner lost control of her car and went into the fence. Did I see the Greens out there championing her right to be allowed to drive down that road safely? Did I see the Greens out there saying that that lady had the right to drive on New Zealand’s roads in wet conditions without having to worry about some bunch of hoons who had tipped diesel on that road and removed the traction she depended on to manoeuvre safely round that corner? No, I did not see that. What I see, once again, is the same old rantings and ravings about the individual rights of a minority bunch of lawbreakers over the collective rights and responsibilities of law-abiding New Zealanders.

Excuse me, but clearly I have something wrong here, because I do not agree with that argument. I believe that the collective responsibility of us as a community of New Zealanders rides right above individual human rights. I do not give a rat’s bottom about that sort of argument. I do not care about it, I do not want to hear about it, I do not want to know about it, and I do not want to have any part of people who would stand up and champion the human rights of a bunch of lawbreakers over the collective rights of a law-abiding community. I think everyone who lives on Buchanans Road and McLeans Island Road, and who frequents Miner’s Groyne, has the right to go about his or her business.

Many years ago—we are talking 1992—my son and his mate were out at our property for an overnight camp. One of those young lads has since done two tours of East Timor, so they have grown up a bit. But they were very young then, and we were a bit worried about them, so I gave them a cellphone and told them that if anything happened that they were not too happy about and they wanted to come home, they were to give me a call. They gave me a call that night, all right, because there were something like 100 cars full of young people at that intersection, no further than 400 metres away from where they were camped, ripping the place apart, acting like a bunch of dopeheads, boozing up, spinning their wheels, blocking the road, and generally being rowdy, disorderly New Zealanders.

💬 Stephen Franks: Having fun.

Having fun, says ACT. They were burning up their tyres on the road, disrupting the traffic flow, stopping law-abiding New Zealanders from driving down the road, and terrorising two young boys who were just out on a quiet overnight camp. They were having fun, says Stephen Franks.

💬 Stephen Franks: Did you ring the police?

No, I went out and picked them up and took them home. The point is that we have a bill here now that defines that they were breaking the law. They were operating their vehicles in a manner that sustained loss of traction; they were performing stunts and clownish acts, and when this bill is passed, that will be illegal. Now they will be prosecuted, and I am happy with that.

I raised the issue earlier of the inconsistency of some people’s debating positions, and I have to bring the House to Hansard, Volume 572, at page 12941—the Land Transport Bill, dated 5 November 1998. How ridiculous! In this bill, we debated in this very Chamber such things as the police being empowered to impound a motor vehicle for 28 days if the driver is apprehended driving whilst disqualified.

💬 Brian Connell: How long?

For 28 days. Impounding a vehicle at the roadside for 28 days, but what have I heard? Let us go to the back end of this debate, at page 12960.

💬 Hon Dover Samuels: Who voted for it?

New Zealand National; ACT New Zealand; New Zealand First; United New Zealand, one vote—something went wrong there, because there are more of them around, so we must fix that up sooner or later; Independents—there were a whole bunch of them, including the Greens. No? We have New Zealand National, ACT New Zealand, New Zealand First—oh no, the Alliance, which had the Greens in it in those days, voted against it, and Labour voted against it.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I have to assist the member. Jeanette Fitzsimons and Rod Donald voted for it.

Oh look, there they are; they are listed as “Others”. Rod Donald and Jeanette Fitzsimons voted for the impounding of vehicles at the roadside for 28 days. Is life not a wonderful thing? Here we now have the Labour Government, a party that voted against that measure, proposing that we expand that law to catch hoons and riff-raff who want to boy-race, and the Greens, who voted for it, are now voting against it, and ACT, who voted for it, is now voting against it. I have to say to Jeanette Fitzsimons that her name is right here on page 12960. Did she change her name? Is it still Fitzsimons? It is.

💬 Jeanette Fitzsimons: There is a big difference between the two bills.

It clearly states the confiscation of a motor vehicle for 28 days. That member should not come to me crying crocodile tears about human rights violations and the inconsistency of this bill with the Human Rights Act when she, the co-leader of the Greens, voted for the very same sort of legislation in 1998. There is a word for that that I cannot use in this House, but people out in the street would say it has something to do with bovine excreta.

I offer congratulations to the MP for Waimakariri. It has been a long, hard battle, but he got the bill through to the House. The bill will be passed and, in time, enacted. Congratulations also to the chairman of the Law and Order Committee, Martin Gallagher. He did a good job, and it is noticed across the House that he is able to work with people. Can he educate some of his young members about working with people? Could he help impart a little maturity to some of them? I say to the ACT party that we are looking forward to its explanation in the next speech of how one can jump from the right side of the bed to the left side and end up in bed with Jeanette Fitzsimons and the Green Party. I am looking forward to hearing that.

Debate interrupted.