Burns Brendon: Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Burns Brendon: Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 20 October 2009. Volume:658;Page:7261. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 It was interesting to hear the Minister’s comments in respect of Labour’s position on the Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill. She said we are being too tough. I find that a little ironic. I reflect back to the accompanying bill the Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill which was passed last night where we had another example of a party talking tough but going easy. Like this bill’s companion measure and the promises and pledges to deal with the issue of noise decibel ratings that failed to materialise in it we have a similar issue here about how we are actually going to enforce the seizure and confiscation of boy racers’ cars. 
The comments from the Minister about how the bill needs to be framed to make sure that grandad does not lose his car are interesting because most of the cars are not owned by grandads; the boy racers do a swap procedure where one owns the other’s car and vice versa. The measures of this bill allowing three warnings before a car may—just may—be seized and crushed will hardly send the sort of message that the community is going to be frightened in its boots about. 
When we talked earlier about the issue of cars under the alternative proposal of Supplementary Order Paper 73 tabled by my colleague Clayton Cosgrove and now defeated by the Committee the Minister suggested that if cars were to go to auction we could see a $20000 car being sold for $300. It was interesting to hear David Garrett comment on that. He was talking about an old dunger—I presume he was referring to a car rather than himself—and how he had bought a $2500 car for $1200. I think that is more the order of things. We tend to be able to buy cars at auction at considerably less than their value but certainly not at some sort of giveaway price in most cases. 
David Garrett 
: Mine had a reserve. Theirs will have no reserve. 
BRENDON BURNS 
: Well if finance companies were likely to have a very very major interest in most of those cars going to auction under the proposal that Labour tabled does the member think that finance companies are going to let their interest in a motor vehicle disappear? 
Paul Quinn 
: That’s right. Now you’ve got it! You’ve finally worked it out Brendon! 
BRENDON BURNS 
: I ask Mr Quinn whether he can give me an example of where a finance company on any piece of asset in this country would allow its interest to be given away at some sort of fire-sale price. Not at all! There is no prospect of that whatsoever. 
The Minister then suggested that the police wanted the crushing mechanism because they said that it would deal with the concerns that they have. That is interesting because my clear understanding is that when this issue first came up at the start of this year the very clear call from the police in respect of how best to deal with the boy-racer issue was for the Government to introduce a cease and desist mechanism whereby the issue of where boy racers assemble and congregate could be dealt with. The police’s proposal was that after a first gathering of boy racers on a street corner at a set of traffic lights or wherever if the police saw behaviour that was going to lead to disorder they could issue a cease and desist order and the next time such an assembly took place the boy racers would be walloped. So if the Minister is saying that she wants to be tough and if the Minister is saying she is doing what the police asked could she comment about what happened to the cease and desist order idea? 
We have in its place a bill that says “three strikes and maybe—just maybe—you will be out” but that was not what was indicated. I have a press report from earlier in the year reporting that when the legislation was introduced to Parliament in May Judith Collins claimed: “every offence”—for street racing—“will bring them closer to the crusher.” Will they be closer to the crusher with every new offence? Well we have discovered that that is not the case. What we will see is a “three strikes” policy and maybe—just maybe—a person will be affected if the judge decides to be tough. That is why it was a shame that last night the Committee did not support the Supplementary Order Paper tabled by my colleague Clayton Cosgrove because as David Garrett has indicated I think we will be back in the Chamber quite soon looking at these issues again. 
It was interesting to note that Mr Garrett as a member of a party that supports the “three strikes” policy suggested that he would like it to be a “two strikes” policy. I say to the member that he had the opportunity last night to propose an amendment to amend Labour’s Supplementary Order Paper. He could have supported it but he did not. So effectively he is voting for something that he does not have that much belief in. How can he and his party do that?