Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill — Second Reading 
Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill — Second Reading 
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Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill 
Second Reading 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Police) 
: 
 I move  
That the Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill be now read a second time 
. This bill along with the Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill builds on existing legislation to enhance the powers of the police and the courts to tackle illegal street racing and associated antisocial behaviour. 
It is important to acknowledge the incident that prompted this bill: the January evening on which a lone Christchurch police officer was ambushed by over 300 illegal street racers and shot at with an air rifle. I thank the members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and in particular the chair of the committee David Bennett for returning this bill to the House in good time. The committee has made a sound recommendation that failure to stop for an enforcement officer should qualify for discretionary confiscation under section 128 of the Sentencing Act 2002. That recommendation has been adopted as part of the bill. The select committee has made a number of other recommendations that add clarity to the bill. 
I also thank the ACT Party the Maori Party and United Future for indicating their support for this legislation. I understand that Labour has indicated that it will support the bill for the second reading but is reserving its position for the next stage but I thank them anyway. I believe that this demonstrates that we have achieved the right balance in terms of this level of support—of cracking down on persistent illegal street racers without unnecessarily penalising the wider population. 
I thank all those members of the public who took the time to make submissions on this bill. The majority of submitters supported the bill stating that their sleep and lives were continually disrupted by the noise and social disorder created by illegal street racing. In particular the submitters whom we heard from in Christchurch spoke of how their quality of life has been severely affected by the noise and mayhem caused by illegal street racing. Some were visibly shell-shocked from the relentless noise. 
This bill along with its companion bill will provide the courts and police with powers to specifically target individuals who have no sense of community and no consideration for other people. Penalties will be directed at those individuals in order to deliver the message loud and clear: “Three illegal street racing offences within 4 years will mean that your car is up for confiscation and destruction.” In addition the Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill will increase driver’s licence demerit points for offences regularly committed by illegal street racers. These two bills will have the combined effect of systematically penalising recidivist illegal street racers to the point where the offender either has no driver’s licence or has no car. 
Under the current law a vehicle owned by an offender can be confiscated if the offender commits an illegal street racing offence. If the offender commits a second offence within 4 years the court must confiscate the vehicle unless that would cause extreme hardship to the offender or undue hardship to someone else. This bill adds a third stage to the current law allowing the court to order that a vehicle be confiscated and destroyed for a third illegal street racing offence within 4 years. If the court does not order that the vehicle be destroyed it must still confiscate the vehicle unless that would cause extreme hardship. 
The bill provides that the court will be able to confiscate and destroy vehicles owned by third parties referred to as “substitute for the offender” in the bill in cases of repeat offending. However unlike situations where the offender owns the vehicle the decision to confiscate is always discretionary with third-party vehicles. There is no mandatory confiscation. I believe that this strikes a fair balance between targeting illegal street racers and warning those people who may unwittingly facilitate this behaviour. Of course that was not dealt with in the previous bill from the previous Labour Government. A snapshot of confiscation data under the current law indicates that approximately half of all offences where vehicle confiscation was available to the courts were committed by offenders in a car licensed to someone else. 
This bill is firm but fair: the vehicles of repeat illegal street racing offenders will be confiscated and potentially destroyed after three offences. However vehicles that do not belong to the offender will be dealt with at the discretion of the court to ensure that third parties are not being unfairly punished for another person’s offending. However the fact that the courts can confiscate vehicles owned by someone else provides a disincentive for parents relatives and friends to lend their car to any individual who participates in illegal street racing. 
Under the confiscation destruction order a vehicle will be confiscated and sold to a vehicle wrecker or scrapyard. It will be a condition of the sale that the purchaser remove any saleable parts and destroy the remainder of the vehicle. This is to ensure that vehicle destruction is not an outright waste of property especially if the vehicle has incurred outstanding fines. Once a vehicle is confiscated and destroyed the proceeds of sale are applied to the following order of priorities: first to pay the costs of the sale which includes all costs incurred in seizing the motor vehicle—towing and storing it including any prior impoundment costs. Secondly they are applied to pay any amount owed pursuant to a security interest. Thirdly they are applied to pay any fines or reparational court costs owed by the offender and any surplus to the offender or substitute as if it was a substitute’s vehicle. Destruction of a vehicle is designed to be a last-resort option to punish the most serious repeat offenders and act as a deterrent to illegal street racers. 
This bill also strengthens existing provisions in the Summary Proceedings Act to seize a motor vehicle in order for unpaid fines to be collected. If fines remain unpaid after the vehicle has been seized then the vehicle can be sold at public auction or in any other manner directed by a District Court judge. The proceeds of the sale are applied in the same order of priority as for confiscation and destruction. 
As I have said previously I acknowledge the efforts of the previous Government to address this problem. The Land Transport (Unauthorised Street and Drag Racing) Amendment Act 2003 introduced specific new offences for illegal street racing. This legislation builds upon the earlier street racing legislation but goes a lot further in penalising individuals who persist in breaking the law. In particular it closes the loopholes in the existing legislation that have enabled illegal street racers to circumvent the law. We know that illegal street racers frequently avoid vehicle confiscation penalties for breaking the law by exhibiting such practices as switching vehicles with each other registering their vehicle to another person and selling their vehicle to a friend for a nominal fee before a court appearance. 
Illegal street racers will no longer be able to commit an offence in another person’s car and avoid vehicle confiscation penalties. Illegal street racers will no longer be able to keep their offending from vehicle finance companies. In the past finance companies have been unaware of illegal street racing offences committed in cars that they have an interest in. This bill includes anyone who has an interest in a vehicle under the definition of “substitute”. This will mean a finance company would receive a written caution if the vehicle that has money owing on it is used to commit an illegal street racing offence. Illegal street racers will no longer be able to sell their vehicle before a court appearance. The Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill provides that the police can issue a sales prohibition notice to anyone charged with an offence that is punishable with vehicle confiscation. Penalty for disregarding this is a fine of $2000. The Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill also provides for sham transactions by third parties to be set aside. 
In addition to these loopholes being closed measures have been taken by Police National Headquarters to ensure that the operational response to illegal street racing is national and consistent that police are fully utilising existing legislation and that there is a clear measurement of illegal street racing activity in each police district. I am satisfied that these operational changes will work in tandem with the new legislation to effectively clamp down on illegal street racing in New Zealand. 
Illegal street racing is not a new phenomenon in New Zealand. All towns and cities have tolerated the odd hoon over the years. However in the past 5 to 6 years the problem has escalated and the statistics reflect that. High-powered cars easy access to finance and younger drivers have created a lethal combination on our roads. Since January this year police have issued more than 1800 offence notices for illegal street racing incidents. A culture of dangerous driving has evolved which puts young lives at risk and has little regard for the lives of others. It is a culture that has pushed some communities to the very edge of their tolerance limit. This bill alongside the Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Bill responds to the demands of New Zealanders and closes the loopholes. It gives a suite of comprehensive powers to police the courts and local authorities to tackle this problem. I commend this bill to the House. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 I say from the outset that I will do what Minister Judith Collins does not very often do to those in front of her: I will commend her for her efforts in this regard. I support the Minister’s efforts in closing a number of loopholes that were not anticipated either by myself or by the police back when we passed the legislation. Specifically as the Minister says there is the loophole regarding the ability to if you will penetrate the third parties and go after their vehicles and there is the tightening of the hardship provisions. 
I do not believe that anybody disagrees with the impact of this behaviour. No one disagrees with that. Labour members will not stand in the way of this bill but we say to the Minister who read the Ministry of Justice notes very succinctly that in putting forward the bill her rhetoric does not meet her action. I will explain why. The Minister said before we had this bill that every boy racer’s car will get closer to the crusher. She told everybody in New Zealand that people who engage in this behaviour will have their cars crushed. That is what she said. She ratcheted it up she jumped up and down she stomped her feet and then we got through to the detail of this bill. 
Although we will not stand in the way of the bill we do not support the car crushing because its theory is defeated by the Minister’s own words. She said as recently as a couple of weeks ago on Radio New Zealand National that far from every boy racer’s car heading for the crusher she anticipates that as few as 10 cars will be crushed per year. That is what she said: 10 cars per year. That proves— 
Brendon Burns 
: Less than one a month. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: My colleague Brendon Burns’ constituency bears a heck of a lot of the brunt of this. The Minister’s own words were that 10 cars a year will be crushed. If one goes to Christchurch on any given night one will see 500 to 600 boy-racer cars if not more just in our area. Sometimes it is more like 1000 cars even in Amy Adams’ electorate. The Minister told everybody that all the cars will head straight to the crusher but now we know thanks to the Minister’s own words that it will be 10 cars a year. It proves that that part of the bill is a fiction. It is a stunt. It will not work simply because only 10 cars a year will head to the crusher as the Minister says. 
We are giving the Minister the opportunity in the Committee stage to toughen this bill. Here is what is wrong with it. As the Minister has said on the first offence under the existing legislation where the offender is also the car owner the court today has the discretionary power to confiscate the vehicle for ever but it rarely does. One could argue and there will be a few hisses groans and noises from members opposite about this that some of our judiciary have been less than strong in their implementation of the legislation. On the second offence if the offender is the owner the court must take away the car for ever. 
Then we get to closing the loophole with regard to the third party and to the measure put in place by the Minister which I support. But this is where she is weak. This is where the legislation is weaker than the existing legislation. The Minister has ratcheted up the rhetoric but she is weak. She penned a reply I am told to the feature article that I put in the 
 Press 
 noting some of the points I am making tonight. I am told that when she wrote the article and talked about balance she pulled it because it was not tough enough for her persona. 
Here is the problem: if a car owner is a third party and another person takes that car and commits an offence then what happens to the owner? Well Judith Collins sends the owner of the car a letter via the police saying that somebody has been naughty in the owner’s car. That is how tough the Minister of Police is. A real beauty! Somebody has been naughty in the car. Then somebody takes the owner’s car and commits a second offence. The Minister sends another letter via the police to the owner saying that somebody has been very naughty in the owner’s car. Ooh that is tough. My word I can hear the boy racers shaking in their boots. 
Then on a third offence—and if members do not believe me then they should look at the police briefing to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee from which I quote—“a court has the discretion” to take the car. It is not “must” take the car. It is not “must take the car for ever”. A court has the discretion on the toss of a coin on the whim of a judge to take the car for ever and maybe if it is one of the 10 cars crushed in a year the court will order the vehicle to be crushed. 
I ask the Minister how tough that is. It does not even line up with the existing legislation which provides that on a first offence the court may take the car and that on a second offence the court must take it. But if there is a third party then that person gets two letters from Judith Collins and the police saying that somebody has been naughty. I am sure that the people in Amy Adams’ electorate in my electorate of Waimakariri and in Brendon Burns’ electorate will be really rapt with that. They will get a letter saying that someone has been very naughty on a second offence and then it is up to a judge’s discretion to take the car. [ 
Interruption 
] Members opposite are saying I am a tough guy. Dr Mapp is a doctor of law apparently although I do not know how many arguments he has ever made in a court of law as an advocate. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Zero. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: The member says it is zero. I ask Dr Mapp to get up and refute anything I say because that is in black and white in the police briefing paper. 
This law will be weaker than existing legislation because it takes away the mandatory provision that requires a court to take a car on the first offence simply because the car belongs to a third party. Minister Judith Collins said—and I agree with her—that half of the offences committed by boy racers are committed by those who have their cars licensed in someone else’s name. She said that the right balance is that two naughty letters will be sent and then something might be done. Well I have talked to parents who say that if their son or daughter took their car and got a warning to say that if it happens again an offence is committed then those parents would sort it out pretty quick. Their son or daughter would not get the car. I offer the Minister— 
Nicky Wagner 
: Well it’s done then. That’s the answer. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: The member said that is the answer. Great lovely wonderful! 
Labour members are here to help. We will put forward an amendment in the Committee stage that simply states that car owners who are third parties—[ 
Interruption 
]; I think members opposite have gone a bit troppo; they do not like it because they have been found out—will get one warning and then the court must take the car on the second offence. We know because the police have told us that the hoons do not sign the car over to mum and dad. They swap ownership amongst themselves. 
I say to the Minister that what she has proposed tonight is a grand hoax. The media wrongly reported that Labour would stand in the way of this legislation—which we will not do—because it would show her up. I know that the Minister was in turmoil because at that point she did not have the numbers to get the legislation through. She did not have ACT or the Maori Party and she is desperate as one person who would know has told me to get that crushing clause through. 
If members of this Parliament believe that it is being tough to crush 10 cars in a year and to write to car owners who are third parties to say that somebody has been naughty and then very naughty and to then leave it up to a judge—when judges take cars in only 2 percent of cases now sadly—then I say that it is not tough. I say that it is rhetoric. One of the reasons we will let this one go through to the keeper is that I look forward in the next year as does Mr Burns as does Ms Dyson and as do all our colleagues in Christchurch and around the show whose constituents are impacted by this to showing up the Minister when it comes to the gap between the rhetoric the foot stomping and the Clint Eastwood impressions and what is real. 
The Minister has the opportunity now. I asked her in the House whether she would support an amendment from us that would toughen the legislation and she said that she had not seen it. It is a pretty simple amendment. It is about one line long. She does not even know her own legislation. 
This is a hoax on people. I will wait for my constituents to come to me to say that boy racers have gone nuts around their street—on Blackett Street and in Kaiapoi for example—and to ask what has happened. Well Mr Jones or Johnny who has signed over his car to somebody else has got two letters from Judith Collins saying that the car owner has been very naughty and then we will leave it up a judge. Then as the coup de grâce the Minister said in some sort of clairvoyant way that she knows that judges will take the cars. Well I say that they should take the cars make it mandatory and use the parts to pay off the fees and the court costs. Let us get really tough. 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 When we are speaking on the Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill I think it is important that we have a sense of reality about what happens on the streets and what the law and what this Parliament can actually do. It is a bit sad when we see the Labour Opposition not wanting to be supportive of this legislation. It knows that its attempts in the past have not worked—it has said that. It said that it could not solve the problem and now when we put a solution up it will not accept it. It will not fully back it. Labour members go out there and try to find an alternative so they can say that that is the way it should be done. The Labour Opposition had a chance to do it the way it should have been done and it did not do it. It did not go out there and make confiscation mandatory as the last member who spoke Clayton Cosgrove said. He had a member’s bill on the subject that this legislation covers. Why did he not do it then? It appears that now it is all right for him to say that that is how it works and that is how it should be but the reality is he knows that is not the case. He knows that this is the best solution on the table. 
When we look at the kind of mandatory solution that Labour is talking about we have to ask where we see that in our law. Where do we see mandatory penalties being proposed? We do not see them. We see penalties that go up to a maximum. The reason is that we have a disincentive basis in our law. In law we basically know what the full sanction can be and the actual penalty leads up that sanction. For example if a person is convicted of an offence does that mean that he or she will always get for example the 10-year sentence that might be the maximum sanction as the penalty in that case? No. 
Hon Dr Wayne Mapp 
: It’s graduated. 
DAVID BENNETT 
: It is graduated as the fine doctor beside me said. That is the case in law. But what we need in law are some examples of what can be the full sanction because that is the deterrent. We are giving that deterrent. That crushing of vehicles will be the deterrent. We are also giving ourselves the ability to have a graduated process leading to that. It is a simple and effective process— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Tell that to your constituents in Hamilton! 
DAVID BENNETT 
: Our constituents in Hamilton are very happy with this legislation and they are happy with this Minister of Police Judith Collins who has shown some leadership. She has done something when she had the chance and she has done something that is practical reasonable and will be successful. Thank you. 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 First of all I make it very very clear that Labour will support the Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill but with amendments. My colleague Clayton Cosgrove has proposed those amendments and we will be interested in the Government’s response to them. 
Once again I acknowledge the submitters who came along to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to make submissions on this bill along with the companion bill that we debated earlier tonight the Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill. For me because I do not live in Christchurch it was a revelation to hear what some people are going through in Christchurch as they suffer the effects of illegal street racing and the noise and behaviour that goes with it. Quite frankly many of them were at the end of their tether. We are enormously sympathetic to them; we cannot help but be. Anyone who has had his or her sleep disturbed by anything including noise will be sympathetic. It does one harm not to get a good night’s sleep because one is constantly being disturbed. Of course that does damage to people’s well-being. But it worries me a little that I think the hopes of those who came along and submitted to the select committee have been raised enormously. We are back to saying that there is a silver bullet that will fix this problem. There is not. There needs to be a range of things and I do not think that this or the previous bill go anywhere near to dealing with the problem. 
Labour wants to work with the Government to support measures that will crack down on the issue of illegal street racing. I acknowledge all of the members in the House who come from the Canterbury region and the Christchurch region in particular who I know have had meeting after meeting with people. In fact I think my colleague Mr Burns lives in one of the streets or near one of the streets that is affected. So I acknowledge what a huge issue it is for those members and I think to a much lesser degree for other parts of the country. 
We are really concerned that the hopes of those submitters that we will find a solution have been raised and this bill does not do it. It has missed the mark. That is why we are proposing an amendment to the bill to toughen it up a bit. We think that the bill as proposed is window dressing. There has been a whole lot of hot talk and tough talk talking up the issue of car crushing and so on. However as I said there are some things that we can do to the bill. I really am looking forward to the Government’s response to our amendment. We will not stand in the way of the bill; we made that clear in the select committee. It goes part of the way towards closing a loophole but we want to see how determined the Government is to toughen this bill up and see it work more effectively by seeing its support for our amendments. 
As previous speakers have talked about in debate on this bill and previous bills the Labour Government has already passed a law to deal with boy racers. It is interesting to reflect that that law is tougher than any law in Australia. I have just been to Australia and obviously I took notice of the transport issues around me because of my transport safety role and my role on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. I asked what the Australians had done about this issue and I had it confirmed that the Labour Government passed a law that was tougher than anything in that country. 
Under the current law the court may confiscate a vehicle on a first offence. It is mandatory to confiscate the vehicle on a second offence within 4 years but that has rarely happened. I think the focus of the work of the select committee and perhaps the Government should have been on why the courts are so hesitant to confiscate rather than just moving to crushing. The courts and people have to get through many obstacles in order for cars to be crushed to the point where the Minister has admitted that it will be only about 10 cars every year. That seems pretty ineffective to me. In 2006 there were 9600 offences in which mandatory confiscation applied under the current laws and over 50000 in which discretionary confiscation applied. But only 1062 confiscation orders were granted which puts the current rate of confiscation at less than 2 percent. So that seems to indicate a real problem we should have been addressing rather than trying to talk up the idea of crushing. 
I am not sure what makes the National Government think its bills will make the courts use the powers of confiscation which are already available to them any more than they already do and when we get to the Committee stage I will be interested in seeking an answer to that question. If the courts are not using the current confiscation powers what makes the Government think they will use the new destruction powers particularly when they are not mandatory? 
Hon Member 
: They have been getting through the loopholes you left and that we are closing. Even Clayton admitted that. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: A loophole in the current law has allowed boy racers to avoid confiscation of their vehicles by having them registered in someone else’s name usually in the name of one of their mates so we support the closing in the bill of the loophole in order to allow the confiscation of vehicles owned by a third party. We will be happy to support that provision during the debate. 
However the Government’s bill does not make practical sense. If the Minister of Police has closed that loophole so that the current mandatory confiscation on the second offence is more likely to be enforced by the courts what is the point of having a third offence provision? The car should have been already confiscated. The third offence provision is discretionary. What is the point of that? The car should be gone by then. We do not believe in allowing cars to be crushed on a third offence when the car should have already been confiscated. It should be gone; it should not be in the ownership of illegal street racers after a second offence. We believe that if that provision were enforced properly it would help combat the boy-racer problem. The focus should be on toughening up the current law and making sure it works so that vehicles are confiscated on a second offence as the law always intended. 
We believe that it makes little difference to offenders whether their cars are confiscated or crushed because either way they lose them. That is what matters: they do not have a car; it is gone. They lose their cars for good. The only people who will suffer as a result of the crushing of cars will be the New Zealand taxpayers who will have to pay for the costs of crushing the car and the fines that cannot be recovered through the sale of the vehicle. 
The National Government has talked tough but in our view the new confiscation and destruction order will be only a last resort. It can be used only if an offender is convicted three times in 4 years. That does not sound very tough to me. It is a higher threshold than the current law and it provides for the mandatory confiscation of a vehicle. I am disappointed that the Government and the Minister have talked up this issue. The submitters came along to share their stories and an earlier speaker talked about how one submitter in Christchurch was so terrified they had someone else come along and present their submission for them because the situation was so awful. I am really sorry because I think that those people will find within a year that nothing has changed. The cars will still be outside their property they will still be making the noise and there will still be the awful behaviour that they described to us. These people will still be losing their sleep and suffering all of the harm that they do. 
I think the Government has missed an opportunity to make some useful improvements to the current law. That is partly because the Minister rushed out of the blocks and started talking tough without really taking the time to think this whole thing through and to look at why the current law is not working. As I said Labour plans to introduce an amendment to the current bill to make confiscation mandatory on a second offence even if the vehicle is owned by a third party. That will reinstate the original intention of the current law that Labour introduced. Labour hopes in the interests of community safety and in the interests of all the submitters who came along and told their stories that the Government will support its amendments. All of the members of the select committee were very moved by those submissions. We were all committed to doing something about it so Labour members hope that National agrees to support the amendments we plan to propose. If the Government really wants to deal with this problem why would it not support our amendments? Thank you. 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Green) 
: 
 New Zealanders who have the misfortune to live in some parts of some of our cities and in particular in some parts of Christchurch are fed up with the noise intimidation and associated criminal activity that goes along with boy racers. The Green Party acknowledges the size of this problem and how desperate people can feel when night after night they cannot get a decent night’s sleep because of what is going on in the street outside. The submissions made very clear how some people are suffering as a result of the behaviour of these people. 
But the Greens are not supporting the Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill because we have a history of not supporting window dressing. This bill will not solve the problem. It is actually nothing more than an expensive ideological branding exercise. The bill is unnecessary because the police and the courts already have the powers they need to deal with dangerous driving and associated behaviours and the nuisance and intimidating effect that they have on our communities. Judges already have the power to confiscate cars after the first offence and they must do so after two offences within 4 years. This bill actually goes backwards on that count. 
The fact is that as successive Governments have found it is easy just to pass another law. It is much harder to give the police the resources they need to enforce the law that is already there. In fact if the money that this bill will cost were put in to greater enforcement of the powers that are already there I believe we would see a much greater decrease in this activity than the decrease we would see under this legislation. After all the Minister herself has said that nine or 10 cars a year will be destroyed. I wonder whether the people in those streets in Christchurch will be able to notice any difference in the decibel level if there are nine or 10 fewer cars than there were previously. I suspect that they probably will not. 
It also raises the wider issue that confiscation and destruction are being used for cars that are noisy but not for cars that are used to maim and kill people. Why is it that we are giving a higher priority to noise and nuisance—awful as they are—than we are to behaviour that is actually killing and maiming people in large numbers? Just this year and these are today’s figures from the library 314 people have died on our roads as a result of road crashes. But instead of focusing on those kinds of transport issues we are looking at ways of dealing with nuisance. Surely there is a hierarchy here; both are important but we do not put nearly enough effort into preventing deaths and injuries on our roads. 
This will not be a cheap bill to administer. The operating costs for the courts alone are estimated to be $470000 a year going up to about $1.5 million in the second year and out-years. The theory is that fines may compensate for this but we have a lot of illegal street racers now who already owe money to the Crown. The fines are not paid. Successive fines are not paid. The fines cannot be collected if those people do not have money. If their cars are destroyed they will be even less likely to pay. It seems to me very unlikely that there will be enough money collected through fines to compensate for the greater cost of putting this law into practice. If we put that $1.5 million a year extra that it will cost the courts into enforcing the law we have against boy racers now I predict that we could reduce the nuisance even further. 
The bill will also of course turn Government agencies into used-car dealers. I wonder whether those agencies do not have better things to do with their time than disposing of cars that are confiscated but not crushed. We support the intention to do something about this serious nuisance that is causing citizens a lot of distress but this is not the right way to do it. It will be ineffective and the Green Party will not support window dressing. 
Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) 
: 
 I am very pleased to rise and speak to the second reading of the Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill. This bill along with its companion bill the Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill is designed to tackle illegal street racing. The bill will give the courts the power to order the confiscation and destruction of vehicles driven by persistent street racers as well as wider powers to enforce the collection of unpaid fines and reparation. 
We know that illegal street racers frequently avoid being penalised for breaking the law. They do this by switching vehicles with one another or registering their vehicles to another person. They can sell their vehicles to friends for a nominal fee before a court appearance. But illegal street racers will no longer be able to commit an offence in another person’s car and avoid being penalised. 
The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee received and considered 58 submissions on the Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill. Thirty submissions were heard at its hearings which included hearings in Christchurch. We heard from ordinary citizens. The public are simply fed up with hoons running riot and with cars doing skids churning up grass verges and scattering rubbish. It is not just about dangerous driving and putting the public at risk; it is also about what these hoons leave in their wake—rubbish such as soggy beer cartons broken bottles and flattened cans that litter pavements and roads and spray-painted start and finish lines on the roads. It is also about property damage. Fences are destroyed and grass areas are ripped up. 
These idiots have gone on far too long and have got away with it. Well they will not get away with it any more under this legislation. I commend this bill to the House. 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker. I rise again to acknowledge the seriousness of the issue. In speaking on the Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill I indicated that as a member of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee I had got the message loud and clear from the people who submitted to us about the real scourge that this issue is and the impact it has on people’s lives. When we met with submitters in Christchurch we had some very strong submissions indeed about people who were suffering from sleep deprivation people who were not able to use parts of their houses at certain times of the week and people whose businesses were affected by street racing and so-called boy racers. We absolutely accept the seriousness of the issue. 
I thank all of the 58 people who submitted on the Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill. As various members from the other side of the House have indicated the submitters clearly articulated their concerns and their desire to see something done. But I have to say that they did not fully and wholeheartedly endorse the legislation as drafted. I do not think that many of the submitters saw the issue for example of car crushing as being the real issue here. When it was all distilled down people outlined three key issues. The issue of noise was the overwhelming one. They wanted something to be done about noise and various ways of addressing that were talked about and discussed during the select committee process such as limiting decibel levels various things regarding modified exhaust pipes and so on. 
As my colleagues have said we will be supporting this bill but we will seek to put forward amendments on it. The bill accompanies the one we discussed earlier tonight the Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill. The purpose of the Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill as outlined is to strengthen the power of the courts to order vehicle confiscation to empower the courts to order the destruction of motor vehicles used by persistent illegal street racers and to strengthen the provisions to seize motor vehicles in order to enforce the collection of unpaid fines and reparation. This bill amends three Acts. It is an omnibus bill that amends the Sentencing Act the Summary Proceedings Act and the Privacy Act. 
We have always said we will support any measures to crack down on the issue of illegal street racing but we believe that this bill has missed the mark. As I said we will be proposing an amendment and I think that my colleague Clayton Cosgrove has articulated perfectly well what needs to change there. We hope that members on the other side of the House were listening to what Mr Cosgrove had to say and will be willing to put their money where their mouths are. They talked tough on this issue and we are saying this bill is actually weaker than the existing legislation. We think that that is a problem. Our proposal will be to toughen up the bill so that it becomes something more than window dressing. 
We are not opposing this bill; in fact as I said we support it because it has dealt with one particularly important loophole. I will come back to that issue but I say the “substitute for the offender” provisions set out in this bill are positive. They are a step forward and they add to what is already in place in the law to deal with boy racers passed by Labour while it was in Government. That law is certainly tougher than anything in for example Australia. The Land Transport (Unauthorised Street and Drag Racing) Amendment Act provides that the courts may confiscate a vehicle on a first offence and that it is mandatory to confiscate a vehicle on a second offence within 4 years. But that rarely happens. One of the things that were not adequately discussed by the select committee was why the courts are so hesitant to confiscate those cars and why that legislation has not been working as it should have. Darien Fenton has already mentioned that effectively the current rate of confiscation sits at somewhat less than 2 percent. 
Clearly a very strong provision is not being effectively used by the courts. We did not get to think about why this bill would make the courts use the powers available to them—the powers that they have or indeed that the Government is proposing. If the courts are not prepared to use the current confiscation powers what does National think will make them use the new destruction powers? 
Again I say the focus should be on toughening up the current law so that vehicles are confiscated on a second offence as the law always intended. Frankly it makes very little difference to an offender whether the car is confiscated or crushed; either way the offender loses the car for good. That is the point really. There has been a lot of tough talk but we do not think that this measure really goes there at all. As Mr Cosgrove said earlier the Minister has already admitted that maybe 10 cars a year will be crushed under this legislation. I do not think that that is going to deal with the very important issues I raised before about the road safety implications the noise implications or the antisocial behaviour implications of boy racers. 
I will put that to one side for a minute to give a bit more detail on the issue of the “substitute for the offender” provisions. We do support those provisions and we think they are very good. That does close a loophole that is currently there. Essentially the bill will provide for a vehicle belonging to a third party to be dealt with. The vehicle’s owner will be served with a written caution unless of course the court is satisfied that the vehicle was stolen or converted that the person in fact did not own or have an interest in the vehicle at the material time that the person was a creditor and had no other relationship with the offender or that the vehicle was hired. There are provisions in the bill to make sure that an owner is warned as an offender is of the implications of any further infringement. We support very strongly this closing of a loophole. 
I will come back to the key issues I have raised. I listened very carefully to the submissions and very strong they were. The noise issue really was the key one. The police already have tools in their tool box to deal with the question of noise. They include the Land Transport Rule: Vehicle Equipment 2004 and the Land Transport (Road User) Rule 2004. I have looked at the use of those rules and found that it varies markedly around the country. I think that is a question of policing which is an important one that I will talk a little more about. 
In terms of the road safety issues again I say the best way to deal with those both the safety issues for the drivers and occupants of the vehicles concerned and for other road users is with adequate policing. The other area that was raised was that of antisocial behaviour. The police were quite clear when we talked about that with them that one of the key contributors to the problems around the antisocial behaviour of the boy-racer grouping was alcohol so we are pleased that the Law Commission report deals with that and raises some suggestions in that regard. We think that the Government should look very very carefully at whether we need to toughen up on issues like drinking in vehicles by people other than the driver. 
Finally I will go on to talk about policing because policing is the key to dealing with all of the issues I have just raised. In fact what really goes to the heart of dealing with this problem is providing adequate policing. In our report on this bill we said that “Labour members are concerned that proposed cuts to Police resources will impact negatively on the ability to effectively deal with the problems arising from illegal street racing.” We believe that that is absolutely true. 
We were given very good evidence of policing that works and is using the rules that I have mentioned. One example is that we received a lot of evidence around Operation Sniper which is an initiative in Counties-Manukau Police District that has made a real difference to illegal street racing. Basically it was about a concentrated focus on it. Operation Sniper looked at the collection and coordination of intelligence on what people were doing having appropriate staff training using education campaigns in high schools making sure that the by-laws already in place were being enforced using overt and covert police tactics working with partner agencies like the councils working with local business owners and residents and really addressing the problem in a holistic way. That has made a significant difference; the drop in the number of cases is high. Across the House somebody argued earlier that we cannot translate that to other areas. I dispute that most strongly. I believe that this issue is about providing adequate policing. 
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. 
BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 I am very pleased to speak in the second reading of the Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill. I acknowledge the opening comments from the Minister who at least had the grace to say that this bill builds on the past legislation of the previous Labour Government. That was unlike the previous speaker Nicky Wagner who suggested that she was not able to get any traction on this issue at all. It is foolish for her or for any member of this House to believe that this legislation is going to be some kind of magic bullet solution. It will build—and Labour is supporting this bill to build—on some of the past actions but we will probably continue to have issues especially because this bill in its current form is not tough enough to deal with some of the issues that are presented by the boy-racer problem certainly in electorates like mine of Christchurch Central. 
I have to ask the previous speaker where the action is on the noise issue—action that was promised time after time after time. People in Christchurch who turned out to endless public meetings were told that we need to reduce the noise to 90 decibels. There were parliamentary petitions and a private member’s bill but there is nothing in this bill on that issue; there is not a squeak on the issue at all. What we have instead is a bill that proposes to take 10 cars a year off the roads and crush them. As has been indicated by my colleague Clayton Cosgrove on a given evening in the Christchurch Central electorate there can be 400 to 500 cars going around and around the four avenues. This bill proposes three warnings and maybe just maybe that a driver might lose his or her car. Labour will be proposing an amendment in the Committee stage to deal with that issue. 
I need to acknowledge that my electorate has the unenviable reputation of being the boy-racer capital of the country. Every weekend we see random and reckless activity with much impact on the quality of life of inner-city residents my constituents. I say to the House that we cannot overestimate what it is like to be somebody living within the four avenues or thereabouts of Christchurch central and having to listen to that incessant noise. People have told me they have had to vacate their homes and leave them empty simply to escape the noise and the accompanying intimidation. Earlier this year I visited the residents of Edgeware Road which is well outside the four avenues area who were being intimidated by a group of boy racers doing burnouts as they did their circuit around the four avenues. I personally was kept awake many nights through the summer before last and I was living hundreds of metres away from Fitzgerald Avenue. It is not just the cars that are making the noise. There is the incessant shouting and also the people who park up and drink in the lay-bys. One of the resulting issues is the broken glass which was a huge problem on mornings when I made my way on foot to the nearby gym. I would often have to pick my way through the glass that was left during the previous weekend. Cyclists in inner-city Christchurch know they face never-ending problems with punctures because of the glass left by the boy-racer problem. 
So I say with all due respect to Jeanette Fitzsimons that we need to attempt to close some of the loopholes in the legislation introduced by Clayton Cosgrove. The Minister has acknowledged that this bill builds on the past measures from the previous Labour Government. She acknowledges and so do I that the police are doing their best with 1800 offence notices issued in the year to date. But obviously if 1800 offence notices have been issued we have issues that we need to address. 
We have to acknowledge that this bill is full of rhetoric in respect of what it intends to do. Taking 10 cars a year off the road will simply not do the business. We will inevitably have a photo opportunity with the first few cars that are taken off the road and with the Minister right on the spot glowing and grinning for the cameras— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: She might do it herself. 
BRENDON BURNS 
: She might; she might push the button. But that will not deal with the problem. We come back to the point that the bill will have an effect only on the third offence and then it is still a matter of discretion. The amendment that Labour will be proposing before the third reading will deal with that issue. It will propose that a warning be sent to the owner of the car whoever it is for a first offence and that a second offence will see the car summarily confiscated and disposed of. Surely that makes much more sense. I think that will send a very clear message to anybody who is having his or her car driven and for whom one offence notice has emerged. We can imagine if it is a mum and dad. Most often it is not; most often it is the mate of the boy racer and they do a swap of the registration to avoid the impacts of the current legislation. The message will get through loud and clear that if someone is caught on a second offence the car is gone; it is history. That is the sort of message that changes behaviour. Three strikes and a maybe as this bill proposes will certainly not have that sort of impact upon behaviour. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: It’s tough eh! 
BRENDON BURNS 
: It is weakening the current position. It is unfortunate that there are loopholes that people are exploiting. Some of the boy-racer fraternity are cunning and devious. They know how to bend the rules and they know how to avoid getting caught. If the Government adopts the proposal that we will put up I think this bill will have the potential to start shaping and curbing some of the behaviour that is being exhibited on a weekend evening in my electorate and in many other electorates around the country most notably—[ 
Interruption 
] That is even on the North Shore I tell Mr Mapp. I ask Government members whether they really think that if they say to their constituents that nothing will be done until the third offence when maybe the offender’s car might go that will change behaviour. I do not think it will do anything whatsoever. 
Nicky Wagner 
: That’s only part of the measure; you know that. 
BRENDON BURNS 
: We are hearing noise again from Ms Wagner but I made the comment earlier that noise is not being touched on in this bill after many repeated promises that this issue would be resolved by that member. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: She was going to fix it. 
BRENDON BURNS 
: She was going to fix it. In fact there were even promises made that there would be a reduction to 90 decibels yet there is not a squeak or a whisper about that in this bill or in its accompanying measure. So it is very clear that there is much noise and no traction on that issue from that member. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: She’s very quiet now though. 
BRENDON BURNS 
: She was very loud in Opposition but now she is very soft in Government. We have to be very clear that Ms Collins took very much to the title of “Crusher” in respect of this bill when it first emerged but I really think the epithet is now more like “Cruiser” on this issue. There will be a lot of cruising going on because no boy racer will be put off by the fact that perhaps his car could be one of the 10 that will be taken on the third offence—maybe if the court decides to do that. That is not tough; that is weakening the current provisions. Labour is proposing an amendment to toughen this bill because at the moment we think that that provision is really just window dressing and a photo opportunity. I think the Government really needs to take account of what Labour will put in front of it. 
As Labour has said very clearly this bill will be supported by the Labour Opposition but we will be proposing that amendment because we want to make this bill as effective as possible. Members should make no mistake: the Labour Party wants to deal with the issue of boy racers. We have passed legislation on it in the past. We have made very clear that we want to support the closing of the loopholes. Some measures of this bill are going in that direction but on the key issue of the confiscation of cars we say that it would be much better to give an indication to the owners of the cars on the first offence that they will see their cars go on a second offence. That would make it very very clear to the owners of those cars that their cars would be gone by lunchtime on the day of the second offence. That is how it has to be. We believe that the loopholes in the law need to be closed we will support this bill through the process and we will be putting forward a proposal to this House before the third reading. I hope that if the Government is truly interested in a bipartisan approach to dealing with this issue it will listen to that amendment and not dismiss it out of hand because the potential is there for Parliament to deal with this issue on a serious and rational basis and to make sure this legislation delivers what has been promised—that is an attempt to close the loopholes to toughen up the legislation and to make sure we reduce the menace that boy racers present in electorates like mine and in others around the country. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 If there was an example of the confusion that Opposition members have around the Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill that speech was it. How sad it is that it came from Brendon Burns the member for the electorate that has the greatest problem. Members opposite say they will support the bill then they say they do not support it. They think it will work then they do not think it will work. That is about as confused as anyone can get. 
I say congratulations to the Minister of Police because I recall that in January following a terrible incident the young men interviewed were absolutely dismissive. They just said to bring it on as we could not touch them. Well the Minister is bringing it on. She is introducing legislation that by the previous Minister’s own admission closes loopholes and will make stronger legislation. For that reason there will be a much stronger deterrent effect. 
I support the bill and I look forward to discussing in the Committee of the whole House some of the details that members opposite have raised because I think they warrant a response. Otherwise I support this bill. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill be now read a second time.  
Ayes 113 
New Zealand National 58; New Zealand Labour 43; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; Progressive 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 8 
Green Party 8. 
Bill read a second time.