Beaumont Carol: Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill — Second Reading 
Beaumont Carol: Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:658;Page:6985] 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker. I rise again to acknowledge the seriousness of the issue. In speaking on the Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill I indicated that as a member of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee I had got the message loud and clear from the people who submitted to us about the real scourge that this issue is and the impact it has on people’s lives. When we met with submitters in Christchurch we had some very strong submissions indeed about people who were suffering from sleep deprivation people who were not able to use parts of their houses at certain times of the week and people whose businesses were affected by street racing and so-called boy racers. We absolutely accept the seriousness of the issue. 
I thank all of the 58 people who submitted on the Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill. As various members from the other side of the House have indicated the submitters clearly articulated their concerns and their desire to see something done. But I have to say that they did not fully and wholeheartedly endorse the legislation as drafted. I do not think that many of the submitters saw the issue for example of car crushing as being the real issue here. When it was all distilled down people outlined three key issues. The issue of noise was the overwhelming one. They wanted something to be done about noise and various ways of addressing that were talked about and discussed during the select committee process such as limiting decibel levels various things regarding modified exhaust pipes and so on. 
As my colleagues have said we will be supporting this bill but we will seek to put forward amendments on it. The bill accompanies the one we discussed earlier tonight the Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill. The purpose of the Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill as outlined is to strengthen the power of the courts to order vehicle confiscation to empower the courts to order the destruction of motor vehicles used by persistent illegal street racers and to strengthen the provisions to seize motor vehicles in order to enforce the collection of unpaid fines and reparation. This bill amends three Acts. It is an omnibus bill that amends the Sentencing Act the Summary Proceedings Act and the Privacy Act. 
We have always said we will support any measures to crack down on the issue of illegal street racing but we believe that this bill has missed the mark. As I said we will be proposing an amendment and I think that my colleague Clayton Cosgrove has articulated perfectly well what needs to change there. We hope that members on the other side of the House were listening to what Mr Cosgrove had to say and will be willing to put their money where their mouths are. They talked tough on this issue and we are saying this bill is actually weaker than the existing legislation. We think that that is a problem. Our proposal will be to toughen up the bill so that it becomes something more than window dressing. 
We are not opposing this bill; in fact as I said we support it because it has dealt with one particularly important loophole. I will come back to that issue but I say the “substitute for the offender” provisions set out in this bill are positive. They are a step forward and they add to what is already in place in the law to deal with boy racers passed by Labour while it was in Government. That law is certainly tougher than anything in for example Australia. The Land Transport (Unauthorised Street and Drag Racing) Amendment Act provides that the courts may confiscate a vehicle on a first offence and that it is mandatory to confiscate a vehicle on a second offence within 4 years. But that rarely happens. One of the things that were not adequately discussed by the select committee was why the courts are so hesitant to confiscate those cars and why that legislation has not been working as it should have. Darien Fenton has already mentioned that effectively the current rate of confiscation sits at somewhat less than 2 percent. 
Clearly a very strong provision is not being effectively used by the courts. We did not get to think about why this bill would make the courts use the powers available to them—the powers that they have or indeed that the Government is proposing. If the courts are not prepared to use the current confiscation powers what does National think will make them use the new destruction powers? 
Again I say the focus should be on toughening up the current law so that vehicles are confiscated on a second offence as the law always intended. Frankly it makes very little difference to an offender whether the car is confiscated or crushed; either way the offender loses the car for good. That is the point really. There has been a lot of tough talk but we do not think that this measure really goes there at all. As Mr Cosgrove said earlier the Minister has already admitted that maybe 10 cars a year will be crushed under this legislation. I do not think that that is going to deal with the very important issues I raised before about the road safety implications the noise implications or the antisocial behaviour implications of boy racers. 
I will put that to one side for a minute to give a bit more detail on the issue of the “substitute for the offender” provisions. We do support those provisions and we think they are very good. That does close a loophole that is currently there. Essentially the bill will provide for a vehicle belonging to a third party to be dealt with. The vehicle’s owner will be served with a written caution unless of course the court is satisfied that the vehicle was stolen or converted that the person in fact did not own or have an interest in the vehicle at the material time that the person was a creditor and had no other relationship with the offender or that the vehicle was hired. There are provisions in the bill to make sure that an owner is warned as an offender is of the implications of any further infringement. We support very strongly this closing of a loophole. 
I will come back to the key issues I have raised. I listened very carefully to the submissions and very strong they were. The noise issue really was the key one. The police already have tools in their tool box to deal with the question of noise. They include the Land Transport Rule: Vehicle Equipment 2004 and the Land Transport (Road User) Rule 2004. I have looked at the use of those rules and found that it varies markedly around the country. I think that is a question of policing which is an important one that I will talk a little more about. 
In terms of the road safety issues again I say the best way to deal with those both the safety issues for the drivers and occupants of the vehicles concerned and for other road users is with adequate policing. The other area that was raised was that of antisocial behaviour. The police were quite clear when we talked about that with them that one of the key contributors to the problems around the antisocial behaviour of the boy-racer grouping was alcohol so we are pleased that the Law Commission report deals with that and raises some suggestions in that regard. We think that the Government should look very very carefully at whether we need to toughen up on issues like drinking in vehicles by people other than the driver. 
Finally I will go on to talk about policing because policing is the key to dealing with all of the issues I have just raised. In fact what really goes to the heart of dealing with this problem is providing adequate policing. In our report on this bill we said that “Labour members are concerned that proposed cuts to Police resources will impact negatively on the ability to effectively deal with the problems arising from illegal street racing.” We believe that that is absolutely true. 
We were given very good evidence of policing that works and is using the rules that I have mentioned. One example is that we received a lot of evidence around Operation Sniper which is an initiative in Counties-Manukau Police District that has made a real difference to illegal street racing. Basically it was about a concentrated focus on it. Operation Sniper looked at the collection and coordination of intelligence on what people were doing having appropriate staff training using education campaigns in high schools making sure that the by-laws already in place were being enforced using overt and covert police tactics working with partner agencies like the councils working with local business owners and residents and really addressing the problem in a holistic way. That has made a significant difference; the drop in the number of cases is high. Across the House somebody argued earlier that we cannot translate that to other areas. I dispute that most strongly. I believe that this issue is about providing adequate policing.