Beaumont Carol: Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Beaumont Carol: Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 20 October 2009. Volume:658;Page:7263. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to speak on Part 3 of the Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill “Amendment to Privacy Act 1993”. Clause 29 states that Part 3 amends the Privacy Act. Clause 30 and the schedule amend schedule 5 of the Privacy Act which authorises Government agencies to access law enforcement information held by other specified Government agencies. The amendment serves the purpose of giving the Ministry of Justice access to police records relating to vehicles impounded for 28 days and access to personal information on the drivers and registered owners of these vehicles. Labour members support these provisions. As a number of us have been saying throughout this process we support a significant number of the provisions in this bill as part of a further strengthening of legal options around the issue of illegal street racing and boy racers. The reason we support it is that we understand the seriousness of the problem. Again to set the record straight I say that the previous Labour Government put in place very strong legislation which still sits on the statute book and is stronger than what applies in Australia for example. I acknowledge that work. The Minister has previously acknowledged that work and I recognise that fact. 
This is an attempt to close some loopholes and in that regard we fully support that work. That is not what this part of the bill is referring to however and I have taken on board the Chair’s comments. We are talking about amendments to the Privacy Act. We have no difficulty with these provisions at all but in relation to the comments made previously by the Minister I say that some elements of the select committee process worked a lot better than others. Certainly the submission process worked very well. I think that everybody got a great deal of benefit from the process both from the submissions of individuals affected by the issue of illegal street racing which was particularly profound in Christchurch and from the submissions made by various organisations such as the Automobile Association the New Zealand Police and the Police Association. 
In speaking to Part 3 I have to note that no submissions were made on this part. But I noticed that the select committee worked less well in some other areas particularly around the deliberation and consideration stage where quite complicated matters were being rushed through with the officials being put under unreasonable time constraints to produce documentation and deal with the questions being raised. I note that point. 
In concluding I say that Labour’s view is that we support much of this bill. Our sole purpose has been to ensure that where it needs to be tightened it should be. We say—and in fact members across the Chamber say—that we are serious about this issue. If we are serious about this issue and if we can toughen up on some of the provisions then we should. Thank you. 
Part 3 agreed to.