Burns Brendon: Sentencing (Vehicle Confiscation) Amendment Bill Summary Proceedings (Vehicle Seizure) Amendment Bill Privacy Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Burns Brendon: Sentencing (Vehicle Confiscation) Amendment Bill Summary Proceedings (Vehicle Seizure) Amendment Bill Privacy Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
[Sitting date: 20 October 2009. Volume:658;Page:7279. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 It is good to be able to speak as we enter the final stages—the home straight if you like—of this legislation. It deserves the House’s attention. It is interesting to note that we did not have from members opposite any Christchurch MPs take part in debate on the Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill or its companion measure the Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill as we went through the Committee of the whole House. I think it is important that we have that sort of representation because Christchurch and certainly my electorate of Christchurch Central has perhaps been the electorate most plagued most focused on and most covered by the media in respect of the boy-racer issue. That is why it is important that I affirm clearly that Labour is strongly in support of this legislation; I think we are hearing that stated time and time again. We have some concerns and questions about the way the legislation deals with the issue of confiscation and crushing and that is why we proposed an amendment in an attempt to make it stronger. 
When I think of the reason we support this legislation I guess it brings me back to people like the moteliers on Bealey Avenue in my electorate. I visited them late last year and saw the damage that was caused by the boy-racer fraternity: letterboxes vandalised neon signs vandalised excreta left in doorways broken glass littering the pavements and that is before— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Was it the National caucus? 
BRENDON BURNS 
: No it was the motels in Bealey Avenue. I looked at the damage that is inflicted every weekend and that is why this legislation is important. That is why Labour is supporting it. Those moteliers deserve to know that Parliament and we as MPs can respond. That is why it is important to say that this legislation is another step in the journey. It will not be some kind of silver cube. It will not provide an ultimate answer in my belief because we will need the ongoing support of the police for instance. We will also need to look at the Law Commission’s report and the proposals emerging for changes in the alcohol laws because alcohol is very significant contributory factor to the problems that we face with boy racers. Not only are they a plague in their cars but also they are a plague where their cars park with the alcohol that is consumed the litter that is left and the glass that is left littering pavements. Many people are affected by that litter. Cyclists for instance are plagued by punctures across Christchurch because of the detritus that is left behind by the boy-racer fraternity. 
I make it very clear to the House in these third readings that Labour is in strong support of this legislation. We would have liked to see an amendment to toughen it up but obviously it is part of an ongoing journey to deal with the problem of boy racers. We have seen time and time again the behaviour of some of those boy racers and Christchurch tends to attract the most focus. We saw in Rotorua in just the last few weeks that a girl racer tried to bring together a show of solidarity in a supposedly peaceful fashion but it got out of hand. That is the problem. There is not a coherent body; it is a collection of random individuals linked by cellphones and behaviour. There is no one coordinated group. We are not dealing with the Mongrel Mob Black Power the Devil’s Henchmen or whatever; we are dealing with a random group of individuals. Yet the damage they wreak can be quite profound. When we look at the attack on the security woman in her car on the perimeter of the Christchurch International Airport in late January or the cowardly and despicable attack on a police officer trying to do his duty in the midst of a mob of boy racers running riot we see that this legislation is important. 
Of course it builds upon the legislation that the last Government passed. Harry Duynhoven was the architect of changes that came through in late 2007 and they in turn had built upon the changes brought by the legislation introduced by my friend and colleague Clayton Cosgrove. So the legislation was introduced in two forms in late 2007. I have to say that I saw some gaps in what was introduced in 2007. That got the support of Christchurch colleagues and amendments were introduced in early 2008 with new regulations that gave police more powers to take cars off the road to deal with noisy exhausts and to modify noisy cars back to a maximum of 90 decibels. So members should not kid themselves about these issues but be very very clear that the legislation is part of a continuum and more changes may be needed. 
I state very clearly that it is one thing for us to pass a bill but we must ensure that the police have the resources to deal with the ongoing issues. I have some nervousness when I see $21 million being squeezed from the police budget when I see community officers being pressed back into service and not doing the community rounds that they are supposed to do and when the police car fleet is reduced. Police resourcing is thin at the best of times and the police need every effort to be made and support to be given. When we consider that in the last calendar year 1500 offence notices were issued by police in Canterbury against boy racers—about 10 times the number issued in Auckland—it gives us an indication of the scale of the issue police are facing in my dear city of Christchurch. 
We are really seeing the tightening of the tourniquet with this legislation but I have to pose the question of how much we as parliamentarians can actually achieve in this respect. Some of these measures simply say very explicitly to judges that they must get a little tougher. Of course they have had the capacity to seize and confiscate cars on the first offence but the indications are that even though there have been tens of thousands of occasions when that might have happened only about 2 percent of the opportunities have been taken up by the courts. So I hope that in a sense the judiciary is able to take a little more notice of what Parliament is trying to express on behalf of a frustrated aggrieved and sometimes frightened constituency: that we as a nation have had a gutsful of the behaviour of boy racers. We as a Parliament in large part—certainly the two major parties with others—agree that we need to continue to toughen up the legislation but Parliament can achieve only so much on behalf of constituents. We need the police to be properly resourced and we need the judiciary to take full note of the concerns that we as parliamentarians are expressing not just on our own behalf but on behalf of the constituents whom we represent. 
If we want to see an idea of the scale of the issue we look at Christchurch. I know that members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee visited Christchurch and I thank them for that. I know they were quite affected by some of the stories of constituents whose lives are being ruined by the behaviours that go on most weekend nights in Christchurch and in other cities. If any member wants to experience that it can be very easily organised to go to a city like Christchurch probably Hamilton or maybe parts of Wellington and Auckland late on a Friday or Saturday night. They will get an idea of what we are dealing with. 
Just for a moment I will talk about the building up of expectations. I think this legislation will help deal with these issues and that is important but we have to acknowledge that there is a high probability that we will be back in the Chamber looking at these issues in the future. That is rather disturbing. The reason I say that is that in the winter of last year I started getting feedback from citizens community groups and residents associations that the problem seemed to be abating in my electorate. I was pleased about that and thought that perhaps the legislative changes that had been introduced in February may be making a real difference. It turned out that when summer came the problem came back with a vengeance and I think what caused the drop-off in boy-racer behaviour last winter was simply that petrol went to $2.20 a litre. It perhaps took more of them off the roads than the combination of legislative measures. So it was a bit of a false dawn in some respects. 
Obviously the measures in this legislation and its companion bill will have some impact. Those changes are very very welcome but let us not get our expectations too far up. We are missing some things in this legislation. The Supplementary Order Paper tabled by Labour could have made it tougher—that is a “two strikes and you’re out” policy rather than “three strikes and you may be out”. Also in the companion bill there is a complete absence of any measure by the Government to deal with the issue of noise which is probably as big an issue as the behaviour of boy racers: the constant roar of cars with basically unfiltered exhausts. Maybe—I will be charitable—the Government is keeping that issue in reserve to come back to at some future time. We will wait to see that but certainly there is no evidence of that at this point. 
In summary I believe that we as a Parliament have dealt with this issue. We are passing this legislation and that is important. I believe that we may unfortunately have to be back here on the issue in the not too distant future.