Cosgrove Clayton: Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Cosgrove Clayton: Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:658;Page:7201] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 I join other members in stating that the Labour Party will support the Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill as we have said in the past but we will raise a number of issues. I congratulate the Minister of Transport on the way he has managed this legislation. Unlike his counterpart Judith Collins this Minister has been rather considered in the language he has used and the expectations he has raised. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: He’s the Minister of Transport that’s why. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: It should not really matter what portfolio one has I would have thought. What matters is the substance of one’s argument. 
On the issue of benzodiazepines Labour will support those measures. There is some merit I think in what is being proposed. 
I want to concentrate on a couple of things that were raised by my colleague Darien Fenton. The first is one of police resourcing. Everybody agrees that this issue of street racing is a pretty ugly issue around the communities. There is a bit of a myth perpetrated by some that it is related to Christchurch maybe Hamilton and one or two other places around New Zealand and that everybody else is immune. I recall that when I launched the legislation that I introduced to the House I launched it in Hamilton because on the main drag of Hamilton—I cannot recall the exact— 
David Bennett 
: Te Rapa straight. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I am indebted to the member. Te Rapa straight had become a drag-strip and “hell on earth” as one motelier described it for me. We support these measures but there is an issue around police resourcing. It is OK to put forward ideas and to write legislation but the question then is how one will enforce it and whether police will have the means necessary to do so. A large amount of money several million dollars has been taken out of the road patrol budget. We know that there has been a requirement for a $21 million cut in police resources even though the Minister Judith Collins denies it. We have a document from the district commander for Canterbury Dave Cliff in which he notes that fact and we have the transcript where the Commissioner of Police alludes to it. We know that 340 vehicles or around 10 percent of the police vehicle fleet are gone. We also know that despite the promises made by the Minister of Police a large number of front-line vehicles are in that fleet. If an officer ain’t got a car it is pretty difficult to chase down some of the people who are perpetrating these crimes. 
I note from Supplementary Order Paper 78 which the Minister of Transport has introduced that he has brought in measures where as I understand it a car can be seized if basically someone does a runner from police. I support that but the question is whether vehicles will be available to enforce it. We know for instance that a large number of front-line cars have been removed from the fleet. Police themselves have said that to me directly. Police themselves have scratched their heads and said that every car in the vehicle fleet is a front-line car whether it be for youth education community policing youth aid or patrol. 
In fact I was sitting in Belfast in my mobile electorate office bus some weeks ago holding a clinic when a highway patrol officer I will not say who pulled up behind me. I knew I had not committed a crime because the keys were out of the ignition and she was stationary. He called me over and looked around—he did not want to be seen too quickly talking to a Labour MP because he knew the National Party bosses would be after him. I said to him that it was great that he had a vehicle. He said—and this was some weeks ago—that the highway patrol car which was a brand-new Holden and was badged up and designed to chase down people who were speeding was “gone”. I asked him what he meant by “It’s gone”. He said “It’s gone. It’s being taken away.” The Minister of Police and I believe the Minister of Transport told Parliament repeatedly that any cuts in the vehicle fleet would not be from front-line resources. 
I make the point to the Minister that although we support the bill legislation is only as good as the way it is implemented by the courts. In fairness I do not think that the courts have used in the past the strength and powers that they have to enforce existing legislation. That is to their detriment and certainly it is to the detriment of communities. But equally if police do not have the resources in respect of vehicles they will not be able to implement this legislation to the satisfaction of Parliament or of the communities. That is no disrespect to them. Sadly the men and women in blue as is starting now and has already happened over the last few weeks since the vehicle fleet was cut are starting to get it in the ear from the public when they cannot turn up to enforce the laws of the land. 
Even in my patch we have already had people complaining. Two people in my patch discovered a burglar and asked for police assistance. They could not gain that assistance in what they felt was a reasonable time and they were disturbed about that. I do not blame the police in my area—this is in respect of Papanui and Redwood. They are sound human beings and highly professional. But the truth is that we know that in Canterbury alone 32 vehicles have gone. That is from the district commander Dave Cliff. He says that 32 vehicles have gone. They are out—gone. 
We know there are difficulties—because police have told us—in the shift changes. When one is waiting for a vehicle and for the next shift to come along crime does not just stop at the end of the shift. The job has to be dealt with. Officers are waiting for up to 2 hours I am told to get access to a vehicle on a shift change in order to implement legislation like this. 
I will also touch on the definition of “cruising”. One of the things I was concerned about when my legislation was passed was that some innovative person who had committed an offence would go to court to contest one of the definitions—say for instance the sustainable loss of traction—and a judge who quite rightly is charged with interpreting the definitions of that legislation might depart from Parliament’s intention and make a different ruling or water down those clauses. In talking to the police one of the difficulties I have with this is that the police have said they are not quite sure how they will be able to be enforce the definition of “cruising” as it sits in the legislation. This is not a political dig at the Minister in the chair the Hon Steven Joyce because I think this is a very very difficult issue to try to write into legislation. 
When 300 or 400 hoons are cruising to use the term around Cathedral Square in Christchurch which is in my patch they might be driving at the speed limit they might be legally licensed and registered and the drivers might well be and probably are sober but they are making one heck of a nuisance of themselves. But if we look at the definition we see that it could be interpreted in Christchurch as looking for a car park. A member of a vintage car club said to me that that is what vintage car drivers do. They get in their vintage cars and go cruising. They do it legally; they do not make a nuisance of themselves. So although in fairness I congratulate the Minister on making a decent effort to try to crack the nut of the definition of that behaviour I am concerned that if this is put to the test a court may indeed reinterpret the word in a way where innocent folks who are not part of this sort of behaviour get done over. 
Some young people are car enthusiasts. They call themselves boy or girl racers but they do not actually break the law. They do not do the sort of stuff that upsets our communities. A group of them came to see me in my electorate office and said they were car enthusiasts who had put a lot of dough into their cars. They go to Colombo Street and sit on the side of the road. They do not leer it up they do not speed and they do not make a noise but they just sit there and they show off their vehicles and what is under the hood as is a time-honoured tradition between young men and women. They brag about and have pride in their vehicles and that is OK. But one woman made the point to me that they are treated the same way by the cops as the hoons who stuff it up for the rest of them. She conceded that that is a difficulty for the police because they cannot differentiate. 
The point I make to the Minister—and I would be grateful if he could perhaps give us some legal assurances—is to ask how confident he and his officials are that the definition of “cruising” will be able to be enforced. I also ask whether his legal officials have given him any idea as to whether the definition is likely to be tested in a court. If it is I ask what the likelihood is in various scenarios of the definition being watered down. 
I tell the Minister that we support the legislation. We think it has merit and some strong provisions unlike the companion legislation put forward by Ms Collins. Now that we have seen the detail of that bill we view that bill as a weaker bill in respect of third parties than is the case at the moment. 
I would also be grateful if the Minister could perhaps give us a reassurance on the issue of police resourcing. We were given commitments in this Parliament that of the 340 vehicles no front-line vehicles would be lost. The Minister of Police said she envisaged that it would be vans going. I will tell that Minister what the problem with that is. In Rangiora the youth aid officer now drives a van. It is called a police prison van because he had his youth aid vehicle taken away from him. I suspect he will find it rather difficult running around catching crims who may break the law in respect of this legislation in a big hulk of a police prison van. The Minister of Police said that that would not happen.