Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill

The debate includes schedules 1 and 2.

I am very pleased to speak to Part 2 of the Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill and I would like to come back to the issues traversed a little earlier around noise, as correctly configured into Part 2 of the bill. I note that the select committee did consider the 2006 petition from Ms Wagner and 435 others on the issue of the decibel rating. Again, I would like to ask the Minister in the chair, the Hon Steven Joyce, to give us some explanation of the Government’s view on the issue. The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee’s consideration of the issue considered the fact that from 1 June last year all new vehicles entering the road had to meet the 90-decibel test but it also considered that the lowering of stationary tailpipe noise limits would not necessarily reduce vehicle road noise at night. I would like to ask the Minister for some advice on that point, and what the officials are saying in respect of it, because, anecdotally at least, and certainly in terms of the petition presented to Parliament in 2005—

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: What party was it from?

The National Party.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: She got rolled.

Well, she certainly made lots of noise about the fact that she was going to deal with this issue. I would like to know what the Government’s position on this is. Obviously the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee has formed a view that with the legislation before the select committee, and with the changes introduced by the Hon Harry Duynhoven and the Labour Government to take effect from 1 June last year, maybe this issue has been addressed, but we have to ask seriously whether the police, even with the provisions of this bill and the anti-cruising by-law provisions that the bill includes, will be able to deal with the issue of noise. There is a significant difference in noise between a car at 90 decibels and 95 decibels. Ms Wagner made much of the fact of it being akin to being quite a distance away from a motor mower and being right up alongside a motor mower being revved at full capacity. Certainly, if one is living on Fitzgerald Avenue, the difference between 90-decibel and 95-decibel cars is considerable.

It is a bit simplistic to say simply that lower stationary tailpipe noise limits would not significantly reduce vehicle road noise. We must take a closer look at the issue of the modification of exhaust systems. Many businesses around the country make a very good living out of taking stock standard noise exhaust systems and tuning them to the point where they can scrape in just a fraction below the 95-decibel recommended maximum.

Obviously a huge increase in noise volume is created between 90 decibels and 95 decibels. I really think the Minister needs to address this question. What is the advice from officials on this issue? Do they support the select committee’s view that at 90 decibels, with the measures in this bill, we will see a significant abatement of the noise problem? A lot of the antisocial behaviour centres on noise. I have to confess that it is not just car exhausts. There is a lot of associated noise from people in cars shouting, tooting horns, and so on, but it is the constant roar of the exhausts that causes a lot of stress to people living in urban environments such as in my electorate of Christchurch Central. Promises have been made to Parliament and to voters that National would address the noise issue, and I ask why it is not being addressed in this bill.

The select committee has formed the view that maybe the measures in the bill will provide an answer, but I believe that that is a little simplistic. Labour’s position is that we must look at the issue of modification, as there really is a difference between 90 and 95 decibels. I suspect that the position will be—and I would like clarity from the Minister on this—that by reducing the level to 90 decibels we will bring in tens of thousands of other innocent motorists who are not out there causing a problem. If that is the view of the Government, then I would like to hear that. The residents of Christchurch Central, of inner-city Hamilton, and of places like the North Shore, Lower Hutt, and Wellington Central, and elsewhere deserve to know why the Government, having made strong indications to the electorate that it was going to cut—

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Pledges.

Pledges, indeed.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Promises.

Yes, promises. Much noise was made about this issue. Public meetings were held. In fact, a website was set up by Nicky Wagner, “Stop the Noise”. In fact, I think the website is still up. Maybe it has been turned down a bit of late, but a very high expectation was created by the member that she would deal with this issue. When she stood in Christchurch Central at the last election she told the people of Christchurch Central that she would deliver on this issue. I do not see anything in the bill that will deal with it. The select committee has formed a view, but the Minister is responsible for the bill. He has the benefit of officials and official advice, and he can provide the Committee with an assurance as to what the view of the officials is.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Tell us why Nicky got rolled.

Obviously she has formed a view that this needed to change, but maybe she does not have any clout within the National caucus.

💬 Hon Steve Chadwick: It’s nanny State.

Yes, it sounds a bit nanny State, does it not? That could, of course, be the other explanation, as the Minister campaigned on the previous Government being a nanny State Government. But we have to acknowledge that the Minister has indicated that he will deal with the issue of cellphones. We are going hands-free a little later in the year. So he is prepared to grapple with some of the tough issues. He is prepared to wear the tag of nanny State from time to time.

💬 Hon Steve Chadwick: But they know best.

Clearly, the Government does know best! While we are on the matter of cellphones, we have to ask the question that if we are going to have hands-free for cellphones, then what about global positioning systems (GPS)? A GPS can distract drivers from the issue at hand, whether they are roaring down Bealey Avenue at 100 kilometres an hour on a Friday night or just searching for a further indication of where to go. I would like the Minister to comment on what the advice to the Government from officials has been. Should there be, as Ms Wagner promised the electorates of Christchurch and the nation, a cut in the noise level down to 90 decibels from 95 decibels? There is nothing in this bill on that. The Minister is responsible for this area. He gets the official advice, and he can tell us, should he choose to do so. I think he should let people know, because they have high expectations.

If the Government does not give us an explanation I will continue to ask these questions. The National Government is now in power and it should tell us, given all the promises and pledges made by Nicky Wagner to Christchurch voters not just at the 2008 election but also in 2005—so it is a repeat promise—that she would deliver on this issue and ensure the noise limits were reduced. She aligned herself with the Noise Off campaign group. She held numerous public meetings and put up a website saying “Stop the Noise”, yet the noise will continue under the measures proposed in this bill. The Minister owes the House an explanation.

I want to pick up from where Mr Burns left off, because he and I and other colleagues from Christchurch—Lianne Dalziel and Ruth Dyson—face the issue of noise to a huge extent every night in our electorates. I think that Mr Burns in his own diplomatic way was being very generous and diplomatic in respect of Nicky Wagner. I can recall that Kate Wilkinson, Gerry Brownlee, David Carter, and, latterly, Aaron Gilmore, stomped the streets of Christchurch and greater Canterbury, held public meetings, and had petitions on this issue. I say that Mr Burns is a generous soul, but he was far too generous to Nicky Wagner. She pledged, damn near in blood, that change would occur. She lambasted the previous Government, saying that nothing had occurred, that the noise level had not been addressed, and that when she got into Government this would all change. Nicky Wagner presented the petition from her and 435 others to her own party’s majority-run committee—I am advised that the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee has a majority of National members on it.

Mr Burns has referred to Noise Off. I cannot recall the names of the individuals in Noise Off—

💬 Brendon Burns: Jonathan?

I am not sure of the surname, but a number of people from Christchurch in a group called Noise Off have campaigned vigorously for a 90-decibel rating, and Ms Wagner was very, very happy to lend her political weight, such as it is, to that group and any other group. Like bees around the honeypot, they clustered around her in support of her position, and I mean no disrespect to those people because we now know that they were hoodwinked—

💬 Hon Steve Chadwick: They had hope.

My colleague says that they had hope. They were hoodwinked. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us, or maybe Ms Wagner could tell us, as I am sure she wants to take a call on this issue. She is here somewhere. As a list member from Christchurch who campaigned vociferously on this issue, she will want to question the Minister—

💬 Hon Steve Chadwick: It was a crusade.

—it was a crusade—vigorously as to why she was rolled by him, and as to why, when National has a majority on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, her colleagues rolled her on this issue.

Now it is accountability time. What was said before the election is now being revisited after the election on those who said it. We have people coming to us in our electorate offices saying: “Hang on, wasn’t this Government going to do something and bring the noise down to a 90-decibel level? Wasn’t it Nicky Wagner and Kate Wilkinson who said that?”. Ms Wilkinson got up in front of the people of Mandeville in my electorate, a couple of weeks after the election, and said: “It will all be taken care of. We’re in Government now. This mob is out. We’re going to sort it.” Gerry Brownlee, David Carter, and Aaron Gilmore said the same. Their words have now come back to haunt them, and it would be helpful if those members would tell the people of Christchurch why they let them down, why they promised to do it, and why they pledged to do it. If it was not National Party policy it makes it worse, because those pledges were then made under false pretences.

The Canterbury members on this side of the Chamber are making contributions. I invite the National members from Canterbury to ask the Minister why he rolled them, and why the majority National members on the select committee rolled them. Why did they not come clean? They were still promising this days and weeks after the election. But when the rubber hit the road, excuse the pun, and we got the legislation in, why then did the majority of National select committee members—and for those who are listening, I tell them that the majority rules in this place; the party that has the majority on a select committee rules the day—roll their colleagues Nicky Wagner, Kate Wilkinson, Gerry Brownlee, David Carter, and Aaron Gilmore? Why did this Minister basically brush them aside and say “We aren’t going to have a bar of it.”

I think to not acknowledge that noise is a huge part of the problem is to dismiss thousands of people and residents around New Zealand. We heard of St George’s Hospital, I think it was—

💬 Brendon Burns: Southern Cross.

Southern Cross, I am sorry, a hospital on Bealey Avenue, which has had to move patients from one side of the hospital to the other. In fact speeches were made about this particular issue by National MPs before the election. They were wringing their hands and saying how awful it was—and it is—and how the Government should do something about it, and that if it did not, they would. Well, they have the opportunity here tonight.

Where are the Noise Off people when we need them? Oh, suddenly it is much quieter; that is great. I will make only three points. Of course, the first point to make, to the Opposition member Clayton Cosgrove, is that the previous Labour Government did have 9 years in which to take action on this particular issue, and, finally, just before it left office, it changed the law so that the noise limit for new vehicles entering the fleet would drop to 90 decibels. Of course, at that time the Labour members had the opportunity to set that limit for all vehicles if they felt so inclined, which of course they did not. So that did not happen.

The second point I will make, perhaps particularly to Mr Burns, is that there is a difference between primary legislation and road rules, and that any change in vehicle noise limits is subject to a road rule, not to primary legislation. Apart from anything else, that is a practical reason why noise limits are not specifically addressed in the Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill.

The third point I will make is that the process we are addressing here in the bill is all about tackling the behaviour that creates the noise, as much as we can. We know that successive Parliaments have tried to do that and have had a limited effect, sometimes with more effect than at other times. Tackling the behaviour involves is a combination of changes to the law and operational activity by the police, as well. We are giving the police a tool box under this legislation that we think will make a significant difference. If we are dealing with noise in the avenues in Christchurch, we are dealing with antisocial behaviour by illegal street racers. That is what we are dealing with. We have to deal with that behaviour. The way to deal with that behaviour is to hit those people where it hurts, which is with regard to their licences and their vehicles, and that is what this bill and the companion bill set out to do.

I am pleased that Labour is supporting this bill, because it knows that it will have an impact. I think that the sooner we get this legislation passed and the sooner we get it into the Christchurch market place and around other parts of the country, the better we will all be at dealing with illegal street racing and the related noise.

I rise also to speak in relation to the issue of noise. It came up in the course of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee’s deliberation on the petition of Nicky Wagner. I think there are a couple of points, and they relate to the point I made earlier about the deliberation and consideration phase of our select committee work being very rushed. A number of important issues were raised about lower decibel requirements, and a lot of information was provided by officials in this area, but I do not think we really got to debate it.

I think it is too simplistic to say that lower stationary tailpipe noise limits will not significantly reduce vehicle noise. I think also that the issue of modification of exhausts is one we need to look at more closely. There are countries, for example, that ban such modifications completely, and some that have lower decibel limits than we currently have. As has already been noted, Labour took action in that regard in its last term in Government.

The area I particularly want to focus on is the fact that the police already have powers to take action in the area of noise under the Land Transport Rule: Vehicle Equipment 2004 and the Land Transport (Road User) Rule 2004. We noted that those rules provide the police with a relatively straightforward way of dealing with noise, as long as the police are there. So it is about police resourcing, actually; use of the vehicle rules that I have just mentioned depends on resourcing.

One of the things I found particularly interesting was that there is very inconsistent usage of those rules around New Zealand. We saw quite a bit of evidence. I will give members some examples.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Oh, don’t!

Oh, I am sure that Mr Henare really does want to know these things. If we are taking a holistic approach, we need to look at what is used already. If we looking at noisy vehicles, we see that there were 249 infringements in the Waitamatā area, whereas in Auckland there were only 15. I do not know; arguably, there are different numbers of vehicles in each area, but both areas are quite large, and it seems to me that that is a major inconsistency. If we go through to Counties-Manukau, we are looking at 82 infringements in relation to noisy vehicles. In the Waikato area we are looking at 111 infringements. On the other hand the Bay of Plenty, which does not have the same population and therefore, one would think, does not have the same number of vehicles as Waikato, had 202 infringements in relation to noisy vehicles. Let us look at the Canterbury area, because it comes up a lot in relation to vehicle noise. In the Canterbury area there were 926 infringements. That is quite a lot of infringements in the area of noisy vehicles. On the other hand, in the southern area there were 147.

My point is that there is quite a lot of inconsistency. One of the things that became obvious to us, and the point was made by the police themselves, is that a lot can already be done in relation to this problem. Essentially, the main part of the problem with boy racers is the noise element, and a lot could be done if there were consistent policing across New Zealand. It seems to me that those two rules on noise are not being applied consistently at the moment, and that they may provide a more straightforward way of dealing with it than some of the propositions that are being put up in both the Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill and its companion bill, which we will be talking about next.

I go back to the point made earlier that the issue is police resourcing. The utilisation of these provisions requires sufficient police at the right time and in the right place, and that is a problem. It seems to me that it is particularly a problem for us at a point when the Minister is actually cutting funding to the police. Cutting $21 million from the police budget and reducing the number of police vehicles on the roads will make it more difficult, arguably, for the police to use those noise provisions.

I thought it was important to note that we do have some noise rules that could be a very useful device, but we do not have adequate policing to use them.

I move, That the question be now put.

I will return to the previous contribution that I made, and base this contribution on some of the comments made by the Minister in the chair, the Hon Steven Joyce. I was quite surprised that in respect of noise, the Minister basically said, as I understand it, he did not believe that the Government should make changes to the primary legislation, but it might set a noise limit through a rule. I say this to the Minister: this is the highest court in the land. This is Parliament. If the Minister is of a mind to, this Parliament can do anything that it likes. He could make changes in respect of the 90 decibel limit in this bill, if he was of a mind to do that. He can do anything that he likes. This Parliament can pass any legislation, saying anything. That is its constitutional power.

💬 Brendon Burns: Provided they have Māori Party support.

Well, that is another issue. But the Government has the numbers, so it says, in respect of this bill, the Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill. If the Minister wanted to do so, he could flick in an amendment or a Supplementary Order Paper—he has done a couple of them, which Labour supports—to change this bill. But he chooses not to do that. I suppose that in the first part of this bill it was a case of “They will know it if they see it.”, and in the second part it is a case of “Well, they will know it if they hear it.”

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I wonder whether you could give some advice to the Committee about the appropriateness of the Minister of Civil Defence parading around the Chamber with a man bag. I am very concerned about that, so could you give us some advice about that?

💬 Hon John Carter: At least no one can say I am not prepared for when it happens. It is all here; the recipe is here. I just hope everyone else has theirs. I am very proud of it.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I know that the Hon John Carter was a boy scout. He is always prepared.

Before I start again, I say I am happy to yield to Mr Carter if he would like to tell us what is in the bag—unless it is his gym gear, which would create a hazardous waste area within the Chamber.

💬 Hon John Carter: No, more than that!

That is great. Before the dinner break I was discussing with the Minister, who I know is very eager to take and answer questions, the noise issue in relation to Part 2 of the bill. A number of members of Parliament are from Canterbury, especially the vibrant member Nicky Wagner. Before and after the election she paraded around the countryside, and she presented a petition from 435 venerable, good-natured folk in Canterbury, who demanded that the Government do something about the noise issue and set the level at 90 decibels. She said—she almost wrote it in blood—at a number of public meetings before the election that this would happen. She lambasted the previous Government and had a crack at us, saying if she got into Government, this would occur, it would happen, and it would be one of the first calls to action that her incoming Government would put through legislation on. Then what happened? Nothing.

The Minister took a call in response to what I said, saying—and I may be paraphrasing him— the noise issue should be dealt with in rules rather than in primary legislation. I ask the Minister why he rolled his own member of Parliament. Why did he roll his own Cabinet colleague? Kate Wilkinson, a member who occasionally resides in my electorate, also paraded around Christchurch, saying if National got in, it would fix the noise problem for Canterbury and for the rest of New Zealand. Gerry Brownlee said that as well, although he may have been talking about himself rather than boy racers. David Carter and Aaron Gilmore said that, as well. Even after the election, those members still rocked up to public meetings and told people that now that they were in Government, they would sort the issue out. I am sure the Minister will be pleased to know that those members were extremely complimentary when he took over the transport warrant. They said he was a man of action and he would deal to the noise issue.

💬 Hon John Carter: That’s why we’re here today.

I tell Mr Carter that here is the problem: the bill does not deal with the noise caused by boy racers, at all.

The 90 decibel pledge that Nicky Wagner and all the National people made is nowhere in this bill, nor is it dealt with in the companion bill. I say to the Minister that if he had a mind to, he could have any legislation passed that he desired to pass. He could pop the 90 decibel limit into this bill now if he and the Government wanted to honour their pledge on that. I am sure Nicky Wagner is around the corners of this Chamber somewhere. I cannot quite see her, but I am sure that she is here and will want to take a call, as will the Leader of the House as he parades into the Chamber tonight. Gerry Brownlee is among the Canterbury members who said that the 90 decibel issue would be sorted and the noise issue in Canterbury would be sorted. I am sure Mr Brownlee will want to take a call and tell the people of Canterbury, New Zealand, why he says—if he sits down—it will be fixed now. Is the member proposing an amendment?

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: No, I just think—

Well, the member will be able to tell the people of Christchurch why he sold them out and why he, his other Cabinet colleagues, and Nicky Wagner were rolled.

Nowhere in the two bills that we are debating tonight is there any reference to action on a 90 decibel limit. My friend Mr Burns has already alluded to that. Those members have been sold out. It is another broken promise from the National Government. We will enjoy, as we do now, constituents coming to us so that we can try to explain why the National Government has sold them out. I will be sending all of the people from Mandeville North to Kate Wilkinson’s office to get her to explain that. Brendon Burns will be sending his constituents to Nicky Wagner’s office for her to explain that.

💬 Hon John Carter: That’s a good idea; they’ll get decent service that way!

Well, the 435 petitioners who signed Nicky Wagner’s petition did not get decent service from her, because she, that member, this Minister, and this Government have broken their promise. Where is the action?

💬 David Bennett: Oh!

I invite the chair of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, David Bennett, who is the member for Hamilton East, or anyone else from the National Party, to get up and tell me where in the legislation there is the solution to the promise to go to 90 decibels. Can the member point me to that on a page, or in a clause or a paragraph of this legislation? Oh no, the member for Hamilton East cannot do that, because I suspect somebody got to him. His constituents in Hamilton East would be spewing, to use a colloquialism, if they knew what he was not doing now. He is not fulfilling an election pledge that he made.

I say to the Minister that he has an opportunity. We are here to help; we would support him if he popped in an amendment. But we know, because the majority of the select committee rejected setting a 90 decibel limit, that the National Government will not have a bar of it. That is a shame, because yet again the rhetoric does not match the action.

💬 Hon Steven Joyce: 9 years!

I know the Minister is calling for the chair of the select committee to jump up and move that the question be put, because he does not want to be in the chair. I invite the member from Hamilton to get up and tell his constituents why he sold them out. Or is he so ineffective, and the Minister so effective, that he, Nicky Wagner, and every member in Canterbury, including, bizarrely, the Leader of the House, were rolled? I do not think it is good enough to make a promise like that before, at, and after the election, and then, like little lambs, not to stand up and say “Well, we promised to do it; we said we’d do it. But we conned you; we haven’t done it.”, and not say why the promise has not been fulfilled.

💬 David Bennett: Rubbish!

Well, where is it? Where is the clause in the bill that deals with 90 decibels? Hello? There is silence. It is deafening. Members speak with a forked tongue over there on the Government benches. The silence is deafening. They are being challenged; it is on the record.

💬 Brendon Burns: The silence of the lambs!

The Minister may take another call and tell us what he is going to do about the noise issue.

I do not buy what he said earlier. As that Minister and most of the Committee know, rules take a long, long time to get through the labyrinth of processes in relation to transport matters. If that Minister wanted to do something, he could pass the bill tonight with the limit of 90 decibels put in place, as the National members promised. They could do that tonight and we would support it, would we not? We would help to facilitate that, but the National members will not do that. This bill is a bit like the bill that we will be debating later tonight, as there is a big gap between the rhetoric and reality. Judith Collins said every car would be crushed, then on Radio New Zealand National she said that meant 10 cars a year. She says “Ha, ha!” to all the people in Christchurch and around the country who have to put up with this insidious behaviour. Effectively, the National Government is saying to communities around the country “Ha, ha! We hoodwinked you!” I am sure that the people from Noise Off, from other interest groups, from Cashmere, from out my way, and from Christchurch Central will be very, very interested when they read in the paper tomorrow and the coming days that this bill is hot air.

To be fair, I say to the Minister that there is a lot of good stuff in the bill. I concede that, but it does not deal with one of the core issues that National members of Parliament from around the country campaigned on. It does not even make reference to it, yet those same members of Parliament—members like Nicky Wagner, Kate Wilkinson, Gerry Brownlee, and the other two invisible men we have around Christchurch from time to time—will not get up and take a call to explain to their constituents why they have sold them out or why they have so little influence that they were rolled in the select committee. The 435 good souls who signed Nicky Wagner’s petition were rolled; they were not listened to in the select committee. They had no influence.

The fact is that the National Government has broken a promise that to some people in our community is a core promise. The people in Blackett St in Rangiora have to put up with this noise every night. So do people in Cashmere, and they called for this measure and National agreed to it, but now the Minister is silent. The National members shake their heads and throw in the odd interjection, but every time that Mr Burns or I have asked where the 90 decibel clause to fix this problem is in the bill, there is silence, because such a clause does not exist. I think that is a shame. To quote National’s jargon, I think that is a “missed opportunity”, because some of the measures in this bill are quite practical. They may go some way to solving or alleviating some of the problem, unlike the companion bill that we will be debating next. But the Minister refuses to acquiesce on the issue of setting the noise limit.

I am very pleased to take another call on the Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill. I have taken an intense interest in this issue, firstly, of course, because of the plague that boy racers create in my electorate of Christchurch Central, and, secondly, because this was the issue that my National opponent in last year’s election campaigned upon. It was her cause célèbre. At meeting after meeting she stood up and lambasted the then Labour Government for its supposed inaction on boy-racer issues. Her view is not supported by Minister Collins, at least, who has acknowledged that good work was done by Labour and that this Government is picking up on it—and that is why Labour is supporting this bill tonight.

But there is a glaring omission, a deafening silence, around the issue of noise control. It was stated time and time again that National would address that issue. I do not have the full file, because it is quite voluminous, so I will give an abridged version of some of the undertakings made by Nicky Wagner, a National list MP. In the Nor’West News on 16 January last year she said: “We have some of the slackest vehicle noise rules in the Western World and so we need to make it so that vehicle noise standards are reduced from 95 decibels to 90, and require all excessively noisy cars to be tested at warrant of fitness time.”

💬 Hon Member: This bill doesn’t do that?

No, not a sign of it. It is missing in action in that respect. In the Press on 19 February last year, Nicky Wagner wrote in an opinion article that the Labour Government’s new noise controls on vehicles do nothing to tackle the boy-racer problems in cities. In that article she also said that 95 decibels is much louder than the rules in many overseas countries. So, again, when I picked up this bill I expected to see a clause to reduce the maximum noise level down to 90 decibels. On 21 February 2007 she wrote, in an article titled “Noisy vehicle amendments not good enough”: “Proposed amendments to the vehicle equipment rule will not bring New Zealand’s noisy vehicle standards up to scratch, says National Party Associate Environment Spokeswoman, Nicky Wagner. The noise problem has been getting steadily worse throughout Labour’s term. This is a basic, environmental issue which the Labour Government just can’t get its head around. Under the proposed new rules, the acceptable noise level for cars would drop from 95 to 90 decibels. This is a standard that’s been in place in Australia since 1983, and here we are still waiting. And we will be waiting until 2010.”

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Who said that?

It was Nicky Wagner. In a letter to the Press on 27 February last year, in reply to Darel Hall, she stated: “Of course a 90 decibel level will catch 90 percent of boy racers, because by definition a boy racer has a modified noisy exhaust. The Government must act now.”

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Who said that?

It was Nicky Wagner MP—then, cheekily, “Central Christchurch”. In another newspaper clipping, from 10 March last year, National MP Nicky Wagner said: “tighter noise controls were essential. She backed the 90-decibel level, which she said was well above the standard of other countries and would not affect unmodified cars.”

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Who said that?

That was Nicky Wagner, too. Here is something interesting; it is not just Nicky Wagner saying that. Here is a statement from 9 September 2005, headlined “National to get tough on noisy cars—National will toughen up the regulations and enforcement of car exhaust systems to get the noise levels in neighbourhoods down …”. Do members know who said that? It was National’s environment spokesperson, Nick Smith. “The problem of noisy boy racers is huge. It causes annoyance and frustration for communities all over New Zealand. People have told me they have had nervous breakdowns, marriage breakups and job losses due to the problems of increasingly noisy cars night after night in their neighbourhoods. National will toughen the requirement to ensure any modified exhaust system is at least as effective as the car’s original. Modifying a car to make it noisier will be illegal. National will introduce a quantitative standard, similar to Australia, so that cars can be properly tested. Labour has allowed boy racers to get away with blue murder. Our car fleet has become increasingly noisy and it is time a new Government said enough is enough.”

💬 Carol Beaumont: Who said that?

It was Nick Smith, environment spokesperson for the National Party. So there we are: not just Nicky Wagner but senior National front-bench MPs in positions of responsibility said they wanted to deal with the issue of noise. Here we are in the first year of this Government, and despite its member having talked tough on the noise issue, nothing is being done.

This bill provides an opportunity. Despite the protestations of the Minister of Transport, he can introduce an amendment. Labour members have indicated we would seriously look at such an amendment, if the Minister wanted to introduce one. But, no, he is not prepared to do that, nor is he prepared to give us any reason why the noise issue is not being dealt with. The officials are here tonight, and they could give him the answers if he does not have them at his fingertips. We would like to know why nothing is being done, despite repeated assurances to communities such as mine in Christchurch by not only backbench MPs but senior front-bench Opposition members at the time that they would deal with this issue.

Labour when in Government took the flak, week after week, of being criticised for not dealing with the issue of boy-racer noise, despite there having been a whole range of other bills. I acknowledge and commend my colleague Clayton Cosgrove for his bill back in 2003, which was the basis of the legislation we are amending this evening. It was a good measure, and it was followed up by Harry Duynhoven’s measure. There were two sets of measures in terms of tightening the nuts to make sure we dealt with boy racers. But there has been nothing from this Government. [Interruption] We will tighten their nuts, all right. There has been nothing from this Government to deal with the noise issue.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Who is nuts?

No, we will not go there. There has been nothing from this Minister. He has the opportunity to tighten the nuts, to deal with the noise issue, and to bring the maximum level down to 90 decibels. But there is not a squeak. There is silence—silence of the lambs. National members were lions in Opposition, and are lambs in Government. That is what I will be taking back to my electorate. The electorate’s expectations were raised time and time again throughout last year’s election campaign. In fact, right back to 2005 National promised that a National Government would introduce legislation to bring the maximum noise level down to 90 decibels. The opportunity is before the Government with this legislation, but there is not a squeak, not a word, not a clause, nothing. There is not even an explanation from the Minister as to why it has not been proceeded with.

I think the electorate has every right to feel jaundiced about that. It was promised that the noise issue would be dealt with. The people were told that at public meetings, they were exhorted to fill out petitions, and a member’s bill was introduced to try to deal with the issue. Expectations were raised. People were told that this issue would be sorted. Here is the first opportunity for this supposed Government of action, and it has not done anything. I again ask the Minister to take a call to explain why action has not been taken. The Labour Opposition will support him if he wants to introduce a late amendment to the bill.

I would also like to know what the officials think about this. Where are they on this issue? Do they believe that the legislation before the Committee tonight will deal with the noise issue? Obviously, Labour supports the bill. It takes further steps to try to crack down, to tighten the nuts on the boy racers. Yes, let us all support that, but there will still be a noise issue. We would like to know from the Minister tonight why he has not dealt with the noise issue. It was promised and pledged, and the electorate has an expectation that it will be dealt with. It is about time the Minister fronted up and answered.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 66 in the name of the Hon Steven Joyce to Part 2 be agreed to.