McKee NicoleNICOLE McKEE (ACT): I stand in support of this Crimes (Robbery) Amendment Bill and I'm going tell the Speaker why. That's because it reminded me straight away of a time in 2013 when I made the New Zealand women's rifle team and we went to South Africa. We were told at that time to make sure that we locked our doors to make sure that we did not at any stage wind our windows down and to always be prepared to be hijacked especially as we had firearms on board with us ammunition and we were a team full of women. It was quite enlightening to see the way that they behaved over there. And when I came here back home I was really quite grateful for the way that we behave here in New Zealand. So when this bill first came out in April when I first saw it I thought Really? We can't have that sort of problem here." So I went about researching and investigating because really if we're going to introduce a bill like this it's got to be talking about and thinking about the victims of violent carjacking crime. What I found is this. This year on Tuesday 30 March after a morning of crime two suspects were arrested for carjacking a person at McDonald's in Mount Roskill. On 4 January this year a woman had her car carjacked at Foxton Beach. The car was written off by the offender. It was not insured and through no fault of her own she's lost her mobility—her asset. On 6 May 2020 a carjacking occurred at the Whangārei service station with a five-week-old baby inside the vehicle at the time that it was taken. On 24 May 2017 a man was dragged from his vehicle by a suspect already on the run from police. Not only was he carjacked but when the offender reversed the vehicle he also ran over the owner of that car. But the following event that occurred on 18 November 2019 left me absolutely shaking my head and excuse me Madam Speaker while I read this because there's a series of events here I don't want to mislead or get wrong. A man named Dylan Brett attempted several carjackings on that day 18 November 2019. He firstly jumped in front of a vehicle forcing a driver to stop. Then he opened his driver's door and told him to get out. The driver slammed the door and drove away. Not deterred Dylan Brett then attempted to pull a driver from a second vehicle but the driver resisted and the offender ran away. But the third attempt was successful. He carjacked a woman in her Nissan car in Christchurch. But possibly like something straight out of The Goon Show the offender drove off leaving his co-offender running behind him. They later abandoned that car and then assaulted another man carjacking his Toyota. They crashed the Toyota before accosting a fifth victim and carjacking her car. But what I want to do is go back to the third victim the first successful carjacking that day by Dylan Brett the female victim who was torn from her car while her seatbelt was still on and was left bruised confused without a phone without her keys or her car. She started to walk to the police station before a passer-by stopped and gave her a lift. Unlike some of the others her car was found OK and her wallet her phone and her keys were still there.So moving back to this bill it seems to me incomprehensible that this scenario of the victim having her car returned after a carjacking is actually what makes a successful prosecution difficult. Apparently it's hard to make out the intent of theft because of the need to prove that the intent was to permanently deprive a person of their asset. There is total disregard for the safety of people of community of newborn babies or of even themselves. And if we're able to amend the Crimes Act then I think that we should. We would then be paying respect to the victims all of those who experience violent carjacking crime. If there are issues with the wording of this bill then I suggest that it goes to select committee so that it can be sorted. The Labour Party on the select committee it's full of lawyers. I would have thought that they would be competent enough to be able to address those issues and actually reword the bill to make it worthwhile for those victims. Or perhaps the National Party—they may make an announcement about an announcement that they're going to do the same thing later on. Meanwhile we'll just commend this bill to the House."