Cosgrove Clayton: Land Transport (Unauthorised Street and Drag Racing) Amendment Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Cosgrove Clayton: Land Transport (Unauthorised Street and Drag Racing) Amendment Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:607;Page:4582] 
CLAYTON COSGROVE (NZ Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 It is a rare occasion when I stand and support National Party colleagues but I have to say I agree with them. It is interesting and astounding that the ACT party which says it is the party of zero tolerance is opposing this bill. Its deputy leader—at Katikati I think Mr Brown said and before the election of course—said that ACT supported the bill. Mr Shirley said: “ACT supports the introduction of the bill. We welcome tougher measures to deal with illegal street racing. Indeed this bill is in keeping with ACT’s campaign for zero tolerance on crime.” That is what he said on 14 May and we had an election a month or so later. For the life of me I cannot work out who ACT is trying to appeal to now. Even its rich mates whom it does support have written to me and other members of this House saying that they have had an utter gutsful of this problem. 
Mr Franks talks about the police being commissars. What an utter insult to the men and women who protect that member and his fat-cat mates! What an insult to the law-abiding Kiwis around this country! I say to Mr Franks that one cannot be tough on crime and campaign for zero tolerance then drop a bucket on the boys in blue. He cannot have it both ways. I am looking forward to the next election when I can ram the words of Mr Franks and Ms Coddington back down where they came from—down their throats. 
Ms Coddington spoke about how discriminatory this bill was. She spoke about some victims. The only victims she did not speak about—no one in that party has spoken about them—are the people who have been killed by this activity. Mr Mark made the point that what this bill is trying to do in essence and what I believe it will do—it will not be a panacea as I have said—is provide an ambulance at the top of the cliff. It will provide a deterrent so that we will not have another death like the one we had on Saturday of a young Thai fellow and possibly his mates in the car. This bill will deter that behaviour. 
Yet of course these people from ACT parade around the country saying they are tough on crime. Every party in this Parliament apart from the Greens—who do not believe that common sense is trendy—and apart from ACT supports this bill. The police around the country man and woman side by side support the bill. The overwhelming majority—the vast majority—of Kiwis around the country support the bill. Even some of the ACT fat cats support the bill. Yet Mr Franks and Ms Coddington get up and oppose it. Work that one out! I do not know. I say to Ms Coddington that maybe she wants to have a register of boy racers! Maybe Alister Taylor could publish the register. Maybe this time after he has published it and people have paid for it he might actually deliver the register to them. 
I say to the ACT people that they should take an example from most of the members in this Chamber—United Future New Zealand First the National Party and others—who have treated this bill with a high degree of seriousness. On the weekend we saw a vast number of examples of lawlessness—of bottles being thrown through police car windows of tragically another death and of utter lawlessness. I think this bill goes a long way to knock those problems on the head. Ms Coddington says that the bill will not work. Well look at New South Wales; it has worked in New South Wales. Queensland which has this problem is begging for the New South Wales legislation as are the Australian Capital Territory and other states. 
I will be the first person as I said in another speech to stand up for law-abiding people. I think that 80 percent of the boy racer types are law abiding. With this deterrent they will join clubs and act lawfully. But there is a hard core of people who even if we gave them the facilities—the 10 percent who are nutters—would get their jollies from having the police chase them around like some sort of  
Dukes of Hazzard 
 movie. They know that the current deterrent that the police have is an infringement notice and it is not working. 
I will say one other thing to Ms Coddington. She and others talk about a lack of police resources. Well here is an eye-opener for her. I went to New South Wales and talked to the police there and asked: “Look what if we threw another 1000 police at the boy racer problem?”. The police said that with the current laws we have it would not work and that all that we would get is another 5000 or 6000 infringement notices. They said that what we needed was a real deterrent. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I make one final point to Ms Coddington and the ACT mob who talk about the police lacking resources. The New South Wales police told me that if we have a decent deterrent we can pull police out of this duty and they can fight real crime. The problem at the moment is even if we threw 1000 extra police at the problem we would get only 5000 more infringement notices which would do nothing. If we have a better deterrent we can release the boys and girls in blue from this duty and they can go out and protect our homes and our livelihoods. 
Debate interrupted.