Woodhouse Michael: Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Woodhouse Michael: Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:658;Page:6973] 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 I will start by saying in relation to the first half of the previous member’s speech that I absolutely agree with him. Despite the jocularity that we have had tonight this is a very serious issue. The Hon Clayton Cosgrove went somewhat AWOL in the second half of his speech though and into some areas that I frankly could not follow. But I think the point he made was a very good one: this is a serious issue. 
Between the first and second readings of the Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill there was an accident in the city of Invercargill—some members may recall it—where an illegally modified car slammed into a wall killing three teenagers. I well recall video footage of the funeral where two of the caskets were draped in Tui flags and a young man standing up in tribute to those fellows said: “Keep on cruising.” Well here is the message. They are dead. They are not going to cruise any more. The Green member Dr Russel Norman talked about changing attitudes but those sorts of things will take a long time to change. This is about changing behaviours. 
I have to be a bit gentle on Moana Mackey because she did not hear the submissions made to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee particularly those in Christchurch. When she says that this bill will do nothing more than what the previous Government said it would do I say that she was not there when the people of Christchurch said with one voice: “Thank goodness we have a Government that’s listening.” That is the measure of the concern that that city has around this issue including the concern of some submitters who were so traumatised by their experience with illegal street racers that they did not even feel confident enough to speak up. Their local member of Parliament the Hon Lianne Dalziel came along and made a submission to the select committee. I am sure those people were very grateful to that member because she articulated the sorts of fears they had. This House should not be under any illusions. Despite the attempts by car enthusiasts to portray street racing as some sort of innocent recreational activity of an evening it simply is not. We had a long line of submitters who said so. 
I will quickly touch on some of the things that are not in the bill because they dominated the submissions. I think we need to elaborate a little bit more on the issue of noise. Submitter after submitter said that if we want to control the issues around illegal street racing we have to control the noise because that is how this issue is manifested. In particular a number of councils including Christchurch City Council and Waimakariri District Council talked about using the Australian noise control standard of 90 decibels. The select committee considered that very carefully and I think that despite the fact there is no change to the bill as a consequence of those submissions it does behove the members of the select committee in the House to explain to those submitters why that is. 
The officials gave the select committee some very good advice around the fact that most of the noise is actually coming not from the engine but from the tyres of the cars particularly at speed. A lot of the noise complaints are due also to the people inside the cars and the music inside the cars. The issue was very carefully considered and was one that the police also helped out with by saying that they felt they were able to police noise effectively with the powers they had and with the extra impoundment and restraint powers that this bill would give them. So I want to give all submitters and the people of Christchurch particularly the reassurance that the fact we did not put a change in the bill as a consequence of their submissions around noise does not mean that we did not take that issue very seriously. 
There are a number of other submissions that I will discuss during the Committee stage of the bill but I just wanted to touch on that. I commend the bill to the House.