Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. It was very good to listen to one of the last senior Ministers standing in the Labour Party—David Parker. He did have a bit of a nasty crack at a member of the Opposition for sort of slight inconsistencies and it did occur to me as we heard him talk about the fact that this new tougher legislation he's bringing in is going to deter fleeing drivers from doing it. But for the last year they've been yelling at us saying that all these tougher sentences that we're proposing like three strikes are not going to deter people because when they're in the act of committing a crime they're not thinking about the consequences so deterrence is a mirage—it's a dream. But when it comes to this bill apparently it's important. So I can't quite work that out: if when the 14-year-old is deciding whether to put the foot down when he sees the police or not this bill is going to deter it. I think it will but that's certainly not been the argument that Labour has proposed for every other proposal that we've made around tougher sentencing over the last two years.So it's been a wonderful and very agile backflip from David Parker that I didn't think he was capable of but there you go. In the last week of Parliament having derided the National Party for years for being tough on crime and so-called knee-jerk reactions to crime we heard David Parker on his way out the door after six years saying that we need to crack down on crime—again another backflip from the Minister on this topic. But here we are; we're on this bill.The National Party's in a slightly tricky position in the sense that we agree with half of it and we disagree with the other half—in the sense that we agree with the proposed changes around fleeing drivers. Everybody knows that the police decision that they'll never chase has been a bit of a mistake. And—surprise surprise!—people worked out relatively quickly that if they put their foot down and took off and are safe that they'll never be chased well the probability of being caught drops very substantially. So—surprise surprise!—more people do it. That has been one of the contributing factors to the explosion in ram raids that we've seen in this country.If you think that this is a global problem go and talk to Michael Hill Jewellers who have got places in Australia and Canada and neither of those countries have anything like the level of violent crime and ram raids and smash and grabs that they are seeing. So that was a mistake and they are slowly getting around to fixing it in this bill—in the sense that it toughens up the consequences for fleeing drivers by allowing their cars to be impounded for longer. Allowing the owners of the cars if they can't provide information to have their cars impounded will make some difference. And it is something that we broadly support in the sense of taking this issue of ram raiding seriously. Bearing in mind that only 18 months or so ago the Labour Government was downplaying this issue pretending it didn't exist but now it does exist and they're finally doing something about it and we support them in that.What we don't support is the obsession with making everybody crawl around at 30 kilometres an hour and putting point-to-point speed cameras in that context. We're not keen on that. We agree that public road safety is important but we would prefer that the Government focus on all the many other factors leading to road deaths. We asked the officials what number of road fatalities and serious injuries were caused by speeding as compared with other things. It's about 10 percent—10 percent. But when it comes to actually having checkpoints for drink-driving or actually coming up with a decent solution to drug-driving or dealing with people wearing their seatbelts or actually providing safe roads and building safe new roads and the whole plethora of other elements around safety not much has happened.But the one thing that the Government has been vigorous on under Michael Wood—and before him Phil Twyford—is cracking down on speeding everywhere. Well yes that might be appropriate but not if at the same time you're making people crawl around at 30 kilometres an hour—24 hours a day if they happen to be anywhere near a school and in our cities. And then on roads where you used to be able to drive at 70 kilometres an hour suddenly with the safest cars in the world you have to crawl around at 50 kilometres an hour and everywhere you look you're having to go slower. So putting point-to-point cameras in that context is just an irritation. We don't agree with it and we don't support it. We're sort of left thinking Well do we support a bill that we sort of half support and half don't like? Or do we oppose a bill because we half don't like it and half support it?"On balance as a caucus we thought it is sending a clear message to the ram-raiders that we're not going to expect their vote but we do take what's going on in our communities very seriously and there should be tougher penalties for them and we've got to do something to try and restore some law and order in this country. So on balance we support it but we don't like this element of it and we'll be dealing with that if we get a chance in Government. But on that basis we will be supporting this bill in the third reading.The only final point I'd make is that we're in the last sitting week of Parliament. If you step right back into the justice sector what have we seen over the past six years? What we've seen is a Government that has set one priority clearly articulated which is to reduce the prison population irrespective of what's going on in our communities—and that's driven everything.We've seen a rise in serious crime and in youth crime over the six years and we've also seen huge delays in the courts. There's been a lot of denial about that; a lot of saying "No no no no—crime's coming down; these are not issues." Then a lot of claims that the National Party's been fear-mongering a lot of talk about knee-jerk reactions and all that sort of stuff. Now right at the very end—just as the finish line is in view—as the end of a six-year period comes into view we now all of a sudden hear Ginny Andersen and David Parker talking about cracking down on youth crime and ram-raiders and all of a sudden there's this mad flurry in the last week of Parliament with a whole bunch of justice bills to try and demonstrate that they take things seriously.I think New Zealanders are not stupid. They see what the Government's doing. Yes this bill will be useful—half of it—but they know that the Government's heart isn't really in it and they are only doing it because they know they're so badly out of touch with public sentiment on this issue. So my simple message to people tuning in: if you want the real thing and you want to have law and order restored in this country well then you've got an opportunity in two months' time to give your vote to National. Thank you very much Mr. Speaker."