Tanczos Nandor: Land Transport (Unauthorised Street and Drag Racing) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Tanczos Nandor: Land Transport (Unauthorised Street and Drag Racing) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:607;Page:4594] 
NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) 
: 
 I would like to address my comments to the schedule and in particular to Part 2. I would like to begin by thanking Dr Smith for his contribution. He is always consistent when we are discussing these kinds of issues. He flagrantly and consistently has no regard for the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. He showed that with his attitude to the Local Government Act and he is showing it with his attitude to this bill. At least he is consistent and we should recognise that. 
Dr Smith invited us to go to Branford Park to check out the hooning that is happening there. Once again at the risk of boring the Committee I remind the Committee that there is adequate legislation available right now for policing this kind of behaviour. It is called the Transport Act and it includes charging people with reckless or careless driving. Dr Smith said that he could not wait for the courts to make a finding that a vehicle should be confiscated there and then. But what he was talking about is summary justice. If we cannot allow ourselves to wait for the proper procedures of law to take place for a person to be found guilty of an offence before being punished for that offence then we are sadly lacking as a Parliament. 
This bill puts all people at risk not just hoons or whatever name we want to use to scapegoat these people. If we look at Part 2 of the schedule at the form that will be given to people when the police are seizing and impounding their vehicles we see that it reiterates what we saw in Part 2 of the bill—that is if an officer believes on reasonable grounds that a person has operated a vehicle “in an unnecessary exhibition of speed or acceleration” he or she can and will confiscate the vehicle. The words “unnecessary exhibition of speed or acceleration” are very telling. We have been told repeatedly that this bill is about safety and protecting people but when we look at the reasons that are given for confiscating a vehicle we see that there is nothing about safety there. There is nothing about protecting the public. It is about an “unnecessary exhibition of speed or acceleration”. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Which is unsafe! 
NANDOR TANCZOS 
: It does not state “unsafe”. That member should read the bill. It states “unnecessary exhibition of speed or acceleration”. It does not state “dangerous speed” or “dangerous acceleration”. It simply states that if people break the law and they accelerate unnecessarily the police can confiscate their vehicles. As I have already said it is not only certain members of the public who are in danger of being caught by this; the bill potentially puts everyone in danger. 
Ron Mark talked about the need for the police to have discretion. New Zealand First is a party that talks about one law for all but what he was talked about was the ability to have one law for some and one law for others. That is not acceptable. 
I would like to reiterate the comments made by my colleague Stephen Franks. He made some very good points. Once again he made the point clearly that this bill is not about safety or protecting the public; it is about creating powers for the police that can be used in draconian and unnecessary ways. Also let me reiterate that if the police are concerned about these kinds of behaviours they should use the powers available to them under the Transport Act. Those powers allow someone to be charged they carry jail sentences as their maximum penalties and they allow the courts to confiscate vehicles—not just impound them. But this Committee is saying that it cannot be bothered with judicial process with evidence or with the need to prove a case. It would rather give the police the ability to impound a vehicle without their having to prove their case to anyone because all they need is reasonable grounds to believe that someone has broken the law. That is entirely inadequate. 
Who do people appeal to? They appeal to the police. They appeal to the body that confiscated their vehicles in the first place. How can we expect an impartial consideration of the fairness of that impounding?