Coddington Deborah: Land Transport (Unauthorised Street and Drag Racing) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Coddington Deborah: Land Transport (Unauthorised Street and Drag Racing) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:607;Page:4595] 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT NZ) 
: 
 I again address the schedule of this bill. I ask the Minister in the chair to show us where in this piece of legislation it deals with repeat offenders. I cannot see it anywhere. 
I add to that that Dr Nick Smith should go back to the 300 people in his electorate he talked about who say they welcome this bill and tell them to be very very afraid. If people speed they will no longer run the risk of just being fined; they will run the risk of having their cars taken off them. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Nonsense! 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: It is absolutely not nonsense. If the Minister looks at the schedule she will see that the notice advises the driver: “I am seizing and impounding ... the motor vehicle ... for 28 days because I believe on reasonable grounds ... you operated that vehicle in ... an unnecessary exhibition of speed or acceleration”. The only condition on that is that it was speed that was outside the parameters of the law. There is nothing in this bill that directs it to boy racers. Lianne Dalziel said that was nonsense. She may well remember when a Labour Minister said “Take the bikes off the bikies!”. There is nothing in this piece of legislation that protects people from not being simply fined for breaking the speed limit but having their vehicles taken off them and impounded. When I asked the Minister of Transport to take a call to explain where in this legislation it protects those people he did not take the call and he did not explain. I presume from that that there is nothing to protect those people. The National Party in its haste to pass this legislation is prepared to let this schedule go through that extends the powers of the police to such— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Be tough on law and order! 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: I am tough on law and order. I am tough on people who break the law. I do not agree with extending the powers of the police to people who they “believe” might be breaking the law. That is the crucial difference. It is an essential piece of liberal democracy that people are innocent until proven guilty and this legislation makes people guilty until they can prove themselves innocent. Under this schedule—in the notice under the heading “ADVICE TO DRIVERS”—the police just have to say in effect: “I’m impounding your vehicle because I believe I have reasonable grounds to believe that you have used unnecessary acceleration or speed.” 
While we are on the subject of unnecessary acceleration and speed I note that Clayton Cosgrove can show very great acceleration in speed when he is running away from television cameras. 
Hon Member 
: Why was he running away from the television cameras? 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: He was worried about his secretary. The Attorney-General has alerted this Parliament to the fact that this schedule is in breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Either the Government’s own Attorney-General is wrong or her colleagues are wrong. Both cannot be right. Some of us in drafting laws take the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act into account. We may not agree with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act but we do not flout the law just because we think it is wrong. But this Government is absolutely flouting the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act with this schedule. I say to all those people who are so happy to give the police more powers that the ACT party and the Green Party were the only parties that moved to reduce the powers of the police in the Local Government Act; all the other parties were happy to increase the powers of the police. I say to those members that they will have to explain to their constituents when they go to them and say: “Because of this schedule—the notice giving advice to drivers—I’ve had my car taken off me for 28 days. I can’t get it back and I haven’t even been convicted of anything.”