Brown Peter: Land Transport (Unauthorised Street and Drag Racing) Amendment Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Brown Peter: Land Transport (Unauthorised Street and Drag Racing) Amendment Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
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PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I did not intend to take a call on this part but after listening to two ACT speeches I feel I have to add a degree of common sense to the whole debate. Mr Stephen Franks is a guy to whom I listen intently on legal matters. I respect the way he approaches the law and makes it easily understood for many of us who are not trained lawyers. But perhaps he is not aware that some years ago I think in 1996 or 1997 Parliament in its wisdom agreed to write law in everyday English that the ordinary person could largely understand. I think this purpose clause fits very well into that sort of language. Everybody who reads it will understand what it is getting at. It is simply the purpose for introducing this amendment bill and the amendment goes into the technicalities of the law. In my opinion it is exceedingly well written. People understand exactly what it means—even the words “other stunts involving motor vehicles on roads”. It disappoints me that Deborah Coddington somehow thinks that that refers to somebody driving a sports car with the hood down. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: She’s out of touch. 
PETER BROWN 
: She is clearly out of touch. I do not know whether ACT members know exactly what goes on. I do not claim to be an expert. I have a sports car with a hood and occasionally I drive it with the hood down but I do not want to get caught by the police. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: You would look pretty good in one of those. 
PETER BROWN 
: I do look pretty good especially with my cheese cutter on and grey hair waving at the sides. It looks absolutely first class. The people who get involved in these activities very often have radios. They listen to where the police believe they are and then when the police arrive they park their cars as I understand it in a very sane manner and say: “Well what are we up for? What are we doing wrong?”. Large numbers of the police are involved in chasing these folk around trying to pin something on them. This bill when it passes and becomes an Act will give the police sufficient powers to deal with the issue more speedily and more promptly. 
 There are—and I think Deborah Coddington raised this point—other things that we believe the police should be doing rather than chasing those sorts of people. But the way she spoke was that it was an option: either this or that. I have to say to Deborah Coddington that the police want to police everything. If a person gets a traffic fine and gets off that traffic fine that is not acceptable to New Zealand First. I do not think that it is acceptable to the average police person who is actually pulling those people up and issuing the fines. 
Stephen Franks 
: It’s acceptable to the Government though. 
PETER BROWN 
: It might well be acceptable to the Government but that is no reason for saying that we should oppose this bill. I was in Katikati listening to Ken Shirley when some of the so-called boy racers came in and I have to say that they were not boys. The Greens say that the boy racers are all young people but some of them were well-established adults who should know a darn sight better and they came in with an aggro-type attitude challenging the meeting. I heard nothing from Mr Shirley that gave me any indication that the ACT members would be opposing this bill—nothing at all. 
Martin Gallagher 
: When was the Katikati meeting? 
PETER BROWN 
: It was only a few weeks ago well after this bill came back to the House. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Did the deputy leader get rolled then in the ACT party? 
PETER BROWN 
: I do not know what has happened to the deputy leader but I would be interested to hear his comments with reference to the Katikati meeting. I would sincerely be very keen to hear Ken Shirley’s comments on this bill in the Chamber today. I listened intently to him and he was certainly playing to that Katikati audience on how strong the ACT members are on law and order. 
Martin Gallagher 
: And he had this bill? 
PETER BROWN 
: I would not like to say that Mr Shirley referred specifically to this bill at that time but he certainly gave the impression that those boy racers their activities and what they stood for were unacceptable to ACT. Some of the boy racers spoke to the audience. Some of them spoke very well but some of them were very arrogant and used language that is unbecoming to this House. The good folk of Katikati put up some practical solutions on how they should address the problem but nobody in that meeting which was well attended gave any indication that there was anybody there who would not support this sort of legislation.