Wagner Nicky: Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill — Second Reading 
Wagner Nicky: Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:658;Page:6987] 
NICKY WAGNER (National) 
: 
 I am very pleased and indeed relieved to support the Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill. All I can say is that it is about time. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Got rolled on the noise provisions didn’t you Nicky? You didn’t get any noise provisions through. 
NICKY WAGNER 
: Clayton Cosgrove has been raving on and talking tough tonight but I would like to remind him that it was his Government that allowed the toxic boy-racer culture to develop. Coming from Christchurch I have been agitating for legislation to curb this problem in our city for years but until the change of Government I could not get any action at all. 
The boy-racer problem has grown and developed over the last decade. It has morphed from being a handful of thoughtless naughty boys into a full-blown culture of antisocial road users. These antisocial road users distress and torment law-abiding communities. They distress and torment them with excessive noise illegal street racing smashed bottles and litter and violent pack behaviour. It was at an incident of dangerous and violent pack behaviour late in January this year in Christchurch where Sergeant Nigel Armstrong was ambushed by a large number of boy racers attacked with bottles and shot at with an air rifle. It was stupid dangerous behaviour and the last straw in a series of escalating boy-racer incidents across the greater Christchurch area which Labour unfortunately did nothing to curb. 
The Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill hand in hand with the Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill will strengthen and empower the courts to take action to manage and control antisocial road-user behaviour. Police across the country but particularly in Christchurch spend many many fruitless hours policing our city streets and the surrounding roads and these bills will provide a greater deterrent and more tools to curb boy-racer behaviour. 
Over the past decade Christchurch people have been wound up and wrung out by the thoughtless noisy dangerous behaviours. They have had enough—in fact more than enough—and they are waiting impatiently to see the first cars of the worst offenders crushed. Many of them joke darkly that they would like to crush the drivers as well. 
As an inner city resident I share their frustration and I look forward to a quieter safer and cleaner city. However I also believe that we need a sensible balanced approach. This bill with its “three strikes and you’re crushed” law gives the legislation balance. There are two warnings for the car owners whether the owners are the drivers themselves—and they tend to be quite slow learners—their families or their finance companies. They are put on notice. If drivers value their cars they have an opportunity to change their antisocial ways and car owners can repossess their vehicles before another offence is committed and before the cars are seized confiscated or crushed. 
This bill will also enforce the collection of unpaid fines and reparations. We have all heard the stories of young boy racers who flout the law and wallpaper their bedrooms with offence notices. The young boy racers I have heard on this topic seem to believe they are bulletproof and they thumb their noses at the long-term consequences. But I have also come across several slightly older drivers who realise the consequences of their stupid behaviour when they try to establish a home and a family and still have boy-racer fines to pay. 
The boy-racer culture has absolutely no merit. It has been allowed to develop over the past decade and it involves pointless noise dangerous driving the smashing of bottles vandalism and intimidation from violent pack behaviour. The people of Christchurch and citizens right across New Zealand want to be rid of it. I fully support this bill and its companion bill because it is high time that the boy racers were held to account.