Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill

Part 2 deals with a number of issues in terms of making an attempt to reduce traffic offending by strengthening the powers of the courts in respect of the seizure of motor vehicles. I will concentrate for a moment on new section 100L, which is to be inserted into the Summary Proceedings Act by clause 28. This provision authorises the sale by the court of a motor vehicle if any fine remains unpaid. We pose no argument in respect of that provision, but, without rehearsing the debate on Part 1, I would point out that there was a lot of debate.

An argument was put forward last night by Mr Woodhouse in respect of the 10 cars that would be crushed per year—the 10 badges of honour that the Minister will wear. He said that there would be a large amount of recycling if this was not done. But that argument seems to be suspended in animation when we look at this provision. The argument is dissolved because, under new section 100L, a court can authorise the sale of a motor vehicle if any fines are unpaid. I have no problem with this. I think that is fine, but I just point out to Mr Woodhouse and others that it will be interesting to see whether the recycling argument that they rehearsed last night will be rehearsed again today. The so-called issue of recycling has not dissolved; the problem, though, is that no evidence has actually been produced—and I do not think this would have been a problem—by the police, the Ministry of Justice, or anybody else in respect of the recycling of vehicles. Boy racers are unlikely to be whipping round to the back end of Turners Auctions as their $30,000 Nissan Skyline or Jaguar goes under the hammer to attempt to buy it back.

Mr Brownlee is an expert when it comes to those large-cylinder vehicles. I recall that he had a powder blue Jaguar at St Bede’s College. I say to the Minister, who is looking quizzical, that that is a type of car. But I know that he was not a boy racer. In fact, I—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Oh, come on!

Oh, well, maybe he was; I will leave that for him to decide. It is very hard to believe that a boy racer will nip round the back of Turners Auctions as his $30,000 Nissan Skyline is going under the hammer in order to buy it back. I think the arguments put forward by Mr Woodhouse are fictitious, unless some evidence—that would be nice—could be put forward. We support these provisions, but with the rhetoric that we are hearing, I would also point out that one would think that this is not being done now.

I am sorry to harp on about Christchurch, which is a great part of New Zealand, but if one goes out with the police at any time there, one sees that they have developed very, very good and practical sting operations. They also have other operations when they just send out incident cars—plain-clothed cars. I was out one night with a couple of young police officers, and I saw that they have, today, the ability under the law to pull over anybody if they think that something does not feel right. They can pull over the young person, or the old person, or whomever. They can go through the registration and the warrant, they can check out the car, and they can also have the bailiffs and the court on standby—as they do—right through the night when they are doing these operations.

If it was Mr Brownlee in his Jaguar who owed a few fines, then they could say that they are sorry, but the tow truck is on its way unless he pays the bill. The car will be on the tow truck, and the tow truck is gone. I am sure that Mr Brownlee would never engage in that behaviour, good soul that he is, but the point I am making is that that happens today. It happens nearly every night of the week.

I know this because I have often been in the back of a police car over many years. The police can pull people over if things do not feel right, and not just where a driver is boy racing, or girl racing. They can pull over drivers—they have done this—and they can say: “Hang on, I don’t think this feels right.” They can check the vehicle through. They can look at the vehicle to see whether it complies. And, by the way, they can ring the bailiffs, ask them to put the details through the computer, and find out whether Mr Smith owes any fines and costs.

I recall being on Moorhouse Avenue one night when a young fellow was pulled up in this way. He gave the police what ho. The police professionals stood there and took it. I, as a lesser mortal, would probably have been less restrained. They told the driver that he owed $5,000 and, unless he paid up, the car would be on the tow truck. He rang mum. Mum—a rather affluent looking person— pulled up in a Mercedes. She put her arm around Johnny, lambasted the police for what they had done, which was the correct thing to do, and said that it was not Johnny’s fault. I ask what he learnt by that.

We support these measures, but we just say that some of the arguments put forward last night will be negated today.

I am very pleased to take a call in respect of the Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill as we go through Part 2 of this important legislation. I reaffirm, as we enter a new day—although it is still the same day in terms of parliamentary sitting time—that Labour strongly supports this legislation and its progress through the House. However, we are trying to make sure that Parliament does not have to revisit this bill on an ongoing basis, because it is our very firm belief that although the bill includes very many good measures, it still has a gap in respect of how we best deal with the issue of the confiscation and seizure—the very name of the bill—of boy-racer cars. The Minister of Police has been stating that she wants to see behavioural change in respect of boy racers, and our very clear position is that it will not be achieved by the measures involved with car confiscation and crushing, if, indeed, we go through the process that this bill outlines. That process involves boy racers who have a deal with a mate or a family member for the car to be owned by somebody else. The driver does some illegal drag racing or burnouts, the police pull him up, and they then send a warning to the owner of the car. Under the procedures of this bill, a second warning is then sent, and then finally on the third offence the car may be seized—

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: May be!

—may be seized—and, at the discretion of the judge, if there are not extraordinary circumstances that he or she wishes to take into account, the car might be crushed. The estimate from the Minister of 10 cars crushed a year nationally could mean that in my city of Christchurch, with 10 percent of the population of New Zealand, we may see just one car crushed a year. I hardly think that that will deliver the sort of behavioural change that is needed. Labour wants to see behavioural change because the boy-racer menace affects many parts of the country, and none more so than my electorate. I was thinking last night about the visit I made earlier this year to a woman living on Fitzgerald Avenue who has moved out of her home and gone to live with family because she has had a gutsful of the menace that is brought. It is not just the noise; it is the ongoing behaviour and the threats that have been brought against her—quite a strong older woman—over the years. It has worn her down to the point where she has left her home without, I believe, having sold it, because it is sometimes quite difficult to sell properties in that area of Christchurch because of the menace that these boy racers bring. She is a strong person who, after years of going out, watching the boy racers, taking down the number plates, and trying to do her best to give the police the support they need to deal with the problem, has finally called it quits and moved, at considerable cost to herself.

I think the police deserve the best possible support that we can give them, and I truly do not believe we are doing it with this bill. It has a kind of pyrrhic quality to it, in that a few cars may be—may be—crushed, but there is no signal to boy racers that they will lose their cars. That is really what is needed, and that is why I strongly support the Supplementary Order Paper tabled by my colleague Clayton Cosgrove.

Another visit in my electorate reinforced the need for some really tough legislation on this issue. It was a visit—again, earlier this year or late last year—to residents living off Edgeware Road. They were not actually on the circuit of the boy racers—they were well away from the four avenues—but had the unfortunate experience of living a few houses away from a property where boy racers were resident. Of course, on a Friday and Saturday night the boys like to begin their evening by doing a few burnouts up and down that street. These people want tough action against it, and I believe they want to see the strongest possible measures emerging from this Parliament to deal with the problem. I do not think they would look at a bill that sees perhaps one car a year taken off the streets of Christchurch as a truly effective behavioural signal to the boy-racer fraternity; I think they would be strongly looking at the Government to do the very, very toughest that it can.

I believe the Supplementary Order Paper from my colleague Clayton Cosgrove would, indeed, deliver a tougher message. It would give a signal on the first offence that if the boy racer does it again, his car will be gone, confiscated, sold, and out of his ownership, and he will not be able to get it back. One or two members opposite have suggested that this will simply allow boy racers to go and buy their cars back. I challenge any members opposite who want to state that again to give us some evidence. A number of inquiries have been made about that issue, and no evidence has been put up to suggest that that is, in fact, happening. If we think about it for a moment, how could it happen? If we are putting up for sale a car that is worth $10,000 or $20,000, and if we have people who have no credit history, who often have bought the car on a long stretch of credit, and who in many instances have a large number of fines against them, where will they find the cash? If they are buying the car at Turners Auctions, they will have to buy it via cash. They cannot put it on the never-never. They have to be able to actually buy the car, so I ask how they will be able to do that. If any member wants to raise that issue again, I ask him or her to bring some evidence to the Parliament that that happens.

Let us look at another aspect of crushing. Here we are, as a nation and as a planet, debating issues like climate change. We need to make the best possible use of our resources. Crushing might have a photo opportunity attached, but if the car has plenty of miles left in it still, I ask what on earth is the sense in putting a perfectly good vehicle, one that admittedly may have been used for some heinous purpose, and which perhaps may need modification to put some decent tyres and other things back on it, into the crusher. Perhaps one car a year will be crushed in Christchurch for a photo opportunity for the Minister and, no doubt, one or two other National members from Christchurch, all so that they can stand there and have their photos taken with a car that is being crushed. That is what it is about. It is not about delivering the best possible outcome in terms of dealing with the menace that boy racers present, both in my city and many other parts of the country.

There is a very viable method here, and I think my colleague Clayton Cosgrove has even indicated a preparedness—and the Government has this opportunity—to amend the Supplementary Order Paper to maybe look at crushing after the confiscation on the second offence. That is something that the Government could dwell on. It would then be making the bill tougher than it is currently. But at the moment there is no signal to the boy-racer community that this Government truly wants to be tough on the issue. This measure would, in fact, send the real signal to them. It would say that if they misbehave, they have one chance. Everybody deserves one chance, but people certainly do not deserve three chances, with the possible outcome of a judge maybe sending a car to be crushed. I commend the Supplementary Order Paper to the Committee.

I remind the member who has just resumed his seat and who is a new member, Brendon Burns, that the Supplementary Order Paper to which he refers was voted out last night. We are not debating it this morning. We are debating Part 2 of the Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill.

I will refer to a couple of main points in Part 2. There has been some discussion this morning about why warnings are to be given to people who have an interest in a car, and why these cars are not simply seized and sold. That provision deals with the fact that some of the interests in the cars are those of finance companies, banks, and parents. When we are putting in place legislation like this, which can be considered quite Draconian from some people’s points of view, we need to have a balance of interests. There is no point having legislation that people do not believe is fair. We have one of the best police forces in the world. The New Zealand Police is, in my opinion, almost the best in the world, if not the best. One of the reasons why the police have one of the most fantastic success records in terms of public confidence—and I saw just yesterday a release about yet another new high of public confidence in the police—is that the public expects the New Zealand Police to act fairly and within the law. It is very important when we are taking away nana’s car, mum’s car, or a finance company - owned car that we act fairly.

I actually believe it is very important that a finance company knows exactly what is going on with its security, so that when it gets its first written warning about what is being done with the car over which it has security and which it has lent a lot of money to secure, it can take action. The company understands that when a car is lost—it is gone, it is sold, or it is crushed—it has lost its security. I believe that finance companies will start taking action. Certainly when I was growing up, and when a lot of people in this Chamber were growing up, young people could not get new cars. They could not borrow from finance companies to buy cars, because, basically, those companies were much tougher about the ways in which they lent. Over the last 10 years or so there has been a great loosening up in that lending, and one of the results has been that a lot of very high-powered cars have been sold to people who cannot control them or their own behaviour, unfortunately.

There has been a lot of talk about how much crushing there will be. Actually, the point of the bill is stopping the behaviour. For a party that says it is opposed to the crushing part of the bill, yet says it is opposed to the bill because it is not tough enough, I think Labour really needs to get its rhetoric right. This bill is actually not about me. It is not about photo opportunities. It is actually about trying to take some action that means something, because the previous Government, despite its very best efforts, frankly could not put a bill together on this issue that had any standing at all.

One of the reasons that the judges do not under the current legislation use confiscation and surrender of vehicles as much as was expected is that the legislation has every sort of loophole available. Frankly, judges have to be able to apply the law as presented by Parliament. We have made it perfectly plain in this legislation that we expect that the judges will apply the law because that is what they do. We are giving judges discretion in terms of what happens to the cars of the worst recidivist offenders. If judges feel that they cannot use that discretion, we would like to know why. I actually think that judges will use it. We have to get the law right. We have always said that this legislation will not be a silver bullet. But it is a vast improvement on the previous Government’s pathetic attempt, which, I have to say, anybody with a law degree could have seen had loopholes right through it. It was very, very difficult legislation. Of course, one has to give the previous Government credit for at least trying, but it did not try hard enough.

Part 2 of the bill, I believe, will deal with the issue of people who sell their cars before the court has been able to take action and confiscate them. That is one of the big loopholes. On the subject of what happens when people’s cars are put up for auction, I have some news for Mr Burns. When one buys a car at auction, one pays whatever is the highest price bid. That is how an auction works. People do not actually turn up to an auction and say that because a car is worth $20,000 they are going to pay $20,000. I tell Mr Burns that what happens at an auction is that a car might be worth $20,000, but if the highest bid is $300 that is what is paid for it. That is how it works in the real world. I know that is not something that members opposite have a lot of experience in, but that is what happens.

As for the question about where the evidence is that boy racers send their friends along to buy up a car at $250 or $300, I ask the member why he does not ask the police when he is strutting around police stations. That is what they say. The police in Canterbury tell me that that is exactly what happens. When Sergeant Nigel Armstrong was attacked by boy racers earlier this year, I went down to Christchurch and I asked them there why this behaviour was still going on. The police said that the boy racers’ mates turn up at the auction, they buy the cars for $250 or $300, and they are laughing. The police say that they are laughing at them. They are laughing at the previous legislation. This part of the bill is one of the steps that we are taking to close that loophole. If they want to keep laughing, they will end up with their cars crushed, frankly.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: 10 a year—10 people.

The member calls out “10 a year”. Actually, I hope that they get the message that we mean business, and hopefully they will stop their behaviour.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: You said all the cars would be crushed. You said that all the cars would go to the crusher.

Unfortunately Mr Cosgrove consistently makes up these things in the Chamber. Frankly, we know that the cars will be closer to the crusher. Mr Cosgrove really needs to consider that he has been so mean-spirited all year about this legislation, asking earlier this year what will happen to poor grandad’s car. Now he is suddenly asking why we are giving grandad a chance to take some action about his grandchild. On one hand he said that we should not have the cars crushed, because it is Draconian. Now he is complaining that we are crushing only 10. Well, for goodness’ sake, Mr Cosgrove really needs to get with the programme and understand that the people of Waimakariri, who almost voted him out last time, will definitely do it next time.

It is very, very important that we focus on behaviour. This is about public safety. It is not about media opportunities; it is about public safety. When those people decided to take on the New Zealand Police this year, to threaten them, and to shoot at them, they took on more than they ever bargained for. This Government supports the New Zealand Police and it supports the law-abiding people of New Zealand. This Government will not stand by and say that it is all too hard and we cannot do it, which is what the previous Government did .

I will take just a short call to follow up on Mr Cosgrove’s point—he graciously acknowledged that I had one—regarding recycling through sales. He told a story, which sadly is all too believable, of silly mummy in the Mercedes turning up and comforting little Johnny, who had several grand worth of fines. It is no surprise how little Johnny became like that. Sadly, there is probably no surprise about how he will turn out as he gets older. But one source of the money is right there: silly mummies from Remuera or Fendalton who think little Johnny can do no wrong, and who, if the car is confiscated, will turn up at Turners Auctions with the gold card and buy back the car. I personally get all of my old dungers from Turners, and I can recommend it as a place for an absolute bargain. I think I got my last car, which was valued at about $2,500, for $1,200. As the Minister in the chair, the Hon Judith Collins, rightly says, at the dunger end of the market where there are no reserves, the highest bid gets it. Of course, a seized car will not have any reserve, at all, so $2 might get it. That is one point.

The other reason that we support the legislation is that it enshrines that wonderful principle of “three strikes”. It gives a chance, gives another chance—and I would be a bit less generous than the Minister, I have to say, which is probably no surprise—and gives every opportunity.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: How many chances would you give?

I think two is probably right, with crushing on the third. The point is that judges need to be given the tools, and this is the place where they are given the tools. But judges also have to use them. I know all the lofty arguments; I wrote essays in law school about who has the greatest influence in our constitutional arrangements. The answer is—and Professor Joseph would agree with me, although he would use more elegant language—that the sovereignty lies here, and if judges do not take the signal then we will be back next year. I put on record that if it is necessary to back Mr Cosgrove to make an amendment to this legislation in order to make crushing mandatory, or confiscation, or whatever will work, then we will support it.

I thank Mr Garrett for his bipartisan approach. I think it is the second time in almost a week when the ACT Party has pulled the rug out from under the National Party. First was the levies bill, which ACT was very sceptical about. Mr Garrett said exactly the same thing, in that he would be back here to back us if the legislation did not work, and likewise with this legislation today. I will address a couple of points that the Minister made in her speech. It was an astounding contribution.

Not many months ago, the Minister of Police, Judith Collins, said, like MacArthur’s “I shall return” statement, those infamous words “every car will head towards the crusher.” They will be burned and etched into our memories. This Minister has declared war on everyone. She has declared war on gangs, war on P, war on boy racers—war on everyone. She is the General Custer of the Parliament, except General Custer had a last stand. He had a last stand. Suddenly we had a speech today that is all about fairness, balance, and not wanting to be Draconian. The Ministry of Justice’s notes are riddled with the term “We need balance”, but this is not about photo opportunities. It is not about sending a signal.

💬 Hon Judith Collins: Ha, ha!

I tell the Minister in the chair, Judith Collins, to hang on a minute. I invite the journalists who might be taking an interest in this issue to go back and read the transcript of the Minister’s statements and the media statements. Somehow, Labour is now being too tough. The Minister said that she thinks that grandads, parents, and finance companies should have due warning so that they can retrieve their vehicles or provide a remedy if someone has taken their vehicle and run amuck. In the case of a finance company, it can preserve its assets. No one on this side disagrees with the Minister on that.

This is what we disagree on fundamentally. It is not parents’ cars that kids take and run amuck with; they take mostly—one in five, according to evidence the police gave before the select committee—their mates’ cars, change the ownership, and run amuck. The Minister said that herself. She is trying to construct an argument that in the case of parents whose sons or daughters take their cars, somehow the Labour Party will give them only one warning and then the car is gone, and that is terrible. There are two problems with that. Firstly, kids are not taking their parents’ cars; they are—deliberately—taking their mates’ cars. I do not think we should give quarter to that. Secondly, all the parents I have spoken with have the view—including a couple I talked to in Belfast a week or so ago—that if they got a letter, a warning, saying that little Johnny had taken their wagon and run amuck and that the next time he does that their car is gone, well, they would sort it out and that would not happen again. Likewise, I believe that a finance company should get a warning to say that its client who owes it $20,000 on a car has run amuck in it. We say give the finance company one warning and then take the car. I suspect that finance companies will put clauses in contracts in the future to say if they get a letter, if they get the encumbrance, the finance company will come around and take the car off the boy racer the first time themselves in order to preserve that asset value.

But the problem is that the Minister has found her kinder, gentler, fairer, more balanced side, which translates to the fact that she is weak; she trumpeted around the country that she would get tough. We believe that the appropriate balance is to give one warning to the third party, and, if the offence happens again, the court must take the car. On a second offence, a court is required to take the vehicle in the same way as provided for in existing legislation that the Minister has preserved. If someone is the owner and offender, the court may take his or her car on a first offence but must take his or her car on a second offence within 4 years. But this Minister, given how tough she is, has written into law that third-party owners will get a letter if someone takes their car and commits a first offence. That is how tough that Minister is. They will get a letter saying that Judith Collins says that someone has been very naughty in their cars. On the second offence, they will get another warning letter that says that Judith Collins says someone has been very, very naughty in their cars. Then, on the third offence, it is up to a judge. There are no mandatory provisions on a third offence in respect of cars owned by a third party that says, as with an owner and offender, that a judge must take the vehicle. That is what we proposed last night and the Minister would not accept it, given how tough she is.

I say that Minister has hoodwinked people. I ask whether the people in Kaiapoi, in Blackett St, and in Hamilton will think that this Minister is tough on boy racers when, after a third offence of making people’s lives hell in the streets of New Zealand—after shaking in their boots when they got a letter saying “You’ve been naughty”, signed off by Judith Collins, Minister of Police, and then a second offence saying “You’ve been very naughty”, signed off by Judith Collins, Minister of Police—on that third offence, it is up to a judge. I wonder how tough the Minister of Police, Judith Collins, will be viewed by people in respect of that.

On recycling, I say that the Minister has provided no evidence apart from hearsay. She told me to go around some police stations. Well, I have, and I do; it would be good if she did. But the ones she turns up to are the ones she opens that the previous Government built and then claims the credit for. Well, I hold up the evidence that was before the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee that the New Zealand Police provided. Here it is, in black and white. In this document there is no evidence, provided by a professional, excellent, hard-working effective police force, that talks about recycling in the numbers. It produces numbers in respect of changes in ownership—one in five people. It produces numbers of offences, fines, crashes, fatalities, tragedies, and industries, but there is not one figure in here in respect of recycling. Yet the Minister gets up and thinks that it is OK to say go and talk to the police. I do, and I have for many years. Maybe there was a slight oversight. Maybe a line dropped off the presentation at the select committee. But I would have thought this Minister—smug though she is, sort of the Cheshire cat of the Parliament—who is so humble, and who cannot get the smile off her face, would get up and say: “OK, fair go. I’ve made a claim that there’s mass recycling all over the show. Here is the evidence, Parliament.” But she said nothing.

I say to that Minister that we support the bill and we support it for a couple of reasons. We support it because I believe we should show this Government the courtesy it showed me when we had a crack at this issue. I agree that there are some loophole changes. [Interruption] I cannot even give these guys a compliment without Mr Quinn going troppo over there, but that is OK. We know which room he should be in in the Parliament. The second reason is that the bill does close some loopholes around hardship and around third-party ownership. But the other reason we will let this go through is it will give us a very, very important point, a litmus test, to judge and hold this Minister accountable. We believe this legislation is not tough enough, and we put up a very simple Supplementary Order Paper. We said that we do not support crushing for two simple reasons. One is we support permanent confiscation—it should be mandatory. After the Minister told New Zealand that all the cars will be heading to the crusher she admitted, and she even admitted it again today, that about 10 cars a year—10 cars a year—will be crushed. I am sure the boy racers are shaking in their shiny shoes. I am sure they are terrified of Judith Collins pushing the button 10 times a year on the crusher.

The other reason we do not support it is it makes no sense.

💬 Paul Quinn: You just said you do support it. Where’s this guy at?

We do not support the crushing provision but we support the bill. If the member is going to go nuts, I say to him that the reason we cannot vote against one clause in Part 1 is because we are voting on Part 1 in totality. He says he is a lawyer but he does not understand when we debate a bill part by part. So there are parts of Part 1 and Part 2 that we do support. But we only get one vote, I say to Mr Quinn, who is a silly, silly member. The other reason we do not support crushing and we support permanent confiscation—[Interruption] Oh, the members on the opposite side of the Chamber are awake now; the lattes have kicked in. The other reason we support permanent confiscation is because we can dispose of a vehicle in a certain way, for instance for parts, whereby we can realise the asset value of that vehicle and use that asset value to pay the fines of the offender, and not have the innocent pay the fines and the court costs through taxes. That will be the only result of what happens with crushing cars. It is 10 a year.

I move, That the question be now put.

Motion agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 69 in the name of the Hon Judith Collins to Part 2, and the following amendment in her name to clause 28 be agreed to:

to omit from new section 100TB(2) “100N(2)(d)” and substitute “100N(1)(d)”.

Amendments agreed to.