Dalziel Lianne: Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill — First Reading 
Dalziel Lianne: Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:654;Page:4110] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I will not enter into a competition of who is toughest on boy racers which was happening with that member’s contribution to the debate. I support the referral of the Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill to the select committee but I reject the idea from Tau Henare that this side of the House ought not to be raising in this Parliament the need to have a detailed debate on a bill that we fear has been overcooked by the Minister. I do not think that is an unreasonable point or position for us to adopt. 
The bill has already been labelled the “Three Strikes and You’re Crushed Bill”—and for a very good reason. There have to be three separate offences over a 4-year period before a car is up for crushing. The only thing that is really being crushed is the hope that this bill will actually do something about what is a very serious problem particularly in my home city of Christchurch. I happen to have lived in all of the streets where the street racers undertake their particular interest although I should say that illegal street racing is not always the nub of the problem. The previous bill that was debated will go some way to addressing the problem where there is a congregation of individuals who have nothing better to do with their time than to show off their rather fancy cars and who by clustering in groups and driving up and down particular streets cause a huge problem to people who are trying to spend their nights sleeping as I think most of us want to do. 
We were told by the Minister that this legislation was designed to close existing loopholes. As I said I have a really serious concern that the Minister has completely overcooked this particular legislation. It does not do almost anything she said it would do. I went right through the regulatory impact statement as I am wont to do because I often find that regulatory impact statements are very useful for establishing the analysis that the Government undertook in order to establish the nature of the problem the options for addressing the problem and the most appropriate of those options for going forward. Here is the adequacy statement from the regulatory impact statement: “This regulatory impact statement is based on the RIS submitted at the time Cabinet approval of the policy of this Bill and its companion Bill amending the Land Transport Act 1998 was sought.” Well that is really not a statement of adequacy or otherwise; I would say that is completely inadequate. That has become a practice of this Government which is the first Government to have a Minister for Regulatory Reform so it is a bit unfortunate it has established this as a practice. 
The essence of the next part of the regulatory impact statement is that it sets out the status quo and through the status quo says that it is stating the problem. But in fact it does not do so. I want to draw the House’s attention to the following part of the regulatory impact statement. It states that “Apprehending a driver or drivers in the act of an illegal street racing activity occurs infrequently and randomly. In the 2003-2007 period there were on average 1659 convictions for illegal street racing activity a year. It is hard to know the true extent of illegal street racing as the participants are transitory and highly organised.” 
The regulatory impact statement goes on to state: “Current penalties for illegal street racing are disqualification and a fine or jail. If a person is convicted twice in 4 years for an illegal street racing offence the court must order that their vehicle be confiscated unless it will result in extreme hardship to the offender or undue hardship to any other person. Despite confiscation being a discretionary penalty after conviction for 1 qualifying offence and a mandatory penalty after 2 convictions the actual rate of confiscations is very low. In 2006 there were 9600 offences in which mandatory confiscation applied and over 50000 in which discretionary confiscation applied. There were only 1062 confiscation orders granted. This puts the current rate of confiscation at less than 2% (or 1 in 10 for mandatory confiscations).” 
I heard the Minister in charge of the bill the Hon Judith Collins say that this legislation would close the loopholes that exist. She said there were issues around people switching vehicles registering vehicles in another name and selling a vehicle for a nominal fee. There is not one ounce of information in the regulatory impact statement to justify the approach that has been adopted in this area. There is no estimate showing how many people did not see the mandatory confiscation of their vehicle as required by the law. In the 9600 offences in which mandatory confiscation applied with only 1062 confiscation orders granted in that year the confiscation period of the mandatory confiscation was even lower than that at one in 10. If that is the case then surely we need to know why the mandatory confiscations were not made. We need to know how many people switched vehicles how many registered their vehicles in another name and how many sold their vehicle for a nominal fee to avoid the application of that particular provision. 
There is absolutely nothing in the regulatory impact statement that sets out the basis for the change being promoted. The alternative options outlined in the explanatory note are very interesting. The non-legislative option of local authorities designating areas for burn-out pads and racing was considered by officials in early discussions but not progressed. That was the Government’s statement of the alternative options. The regulatory impact statement then states: “Experience of this type of intervention in the past has done little to reduce or rectify the illegal street racing problem.” There is absolutely nothing to grapple with there. The preferred option is to introduce these two bills the Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill and the Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill to apparently deal with the nature of the problem the Government has failed to identify. 
The regulatory impact statement then goes on to outline the benefits and costs to consumers and wider society. It states: “The threat of vehicle confiscation and destruction will deter and reduce the opportunities to use vehicles for street racing offending.” There is absolutely nothing in this regulatory impact statement to back up this claim at all. I think that the select committee will really have its work cut out for it in going through the evidence the Government is hiding from public view because the Government certainly has not put it in the regulatory impact statement. The Government says that the incidence of illegal street racing will decline as a result of this bill and that the police will be able to reallocate their resources to other front-line duties. I am afraid that just saying so in a regulatory impact statement does not make it so. I think there is considerable work to be done. 
Then we are told that if rates of vehicle confiscation increase then finance companies will be more inclined to undertake rigorous background checks on vehicle owners before financing a vehicle. How will they know before they finance a vehicle whether it will be used in an illegal street race? It is hardly the sort of thing that will come up in a disclosure document. Vehicle owners can already have their vehicles confiscated; there is mandatory confiscation after two offences in a 4-year period. In fact this regulatory impact statement states that this should not be an additional burden on finance companies. Well it will not be because this regulatory impact statement does not explain how the bill will be effective. 
We are told under the heading about the costs that will apply that an increase in Vote Courts has been sought in anticipation that the courts will order the confiscation of an additional 3000 vehicles annually. The Government is saying it will not even make the current law work because over 9000 vehicles should have been confiscated under the previous law. So even the Government is not very ambitious in what it believes this legislation ought to do. 
Finally I will comment on the last little bit of the regulatory impact statement which states: “While less may be recovered from vehicles intended for destruction the number of orders is likely to be small. In 2007 only 10 offenders were convicted of a third illegal street racing offence within 4 years.” That is why I come back to the name of this bill which really ought to be the “Three Strikes and You’re Crushed Bill”. This has been a crushing defeat for the Minister.