Smith Nick: Land Transport (Unauthorised Street and Drag Racing) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Smith Nick: Land Transport (Unauthorised Street and Drag Racing) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:607;Page:4610] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (NZ National—Nelson) 
: 
 National supports this bill as a matter of principle. 
Stephen Franks 
: Which principle is this? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I tell Mr Franks that it is a very simple principle. I shall tell members what it is. The principle is that the right of people to live in peace is more important than the right of people to hoon. If Mr Prebble wants to take a call he is free to do so. However I want to go systemically through each of the six points raised by Mr Tanczos and to comment on them. 
The first point raised by Mr Tanczos was that the bill is unnecessary. He is wrong. I have been out in my community with the police and the neighbours who put up with the nonsense of the hoons who are disrupting communities up and down New Zealand. People do doughnuts and wreck public parks and are out there disturbing the peace through the squealing of the wheels of their cars and the Greens and ACT say the law is adequate to deal with that at the moment. I say it is not; it is not working. Some members here in the Chamber want to believe that the police are hopeless and that Parliament has the law right. I do not believe that. I believe that we are providing legislation that is indeed necessary. 
The second point made by Mr Tanczos is that under this legislation one is proven guilty before one gets to court. Somehow there is the absolute pure view that we cannot do anything until such time as the courts rule. Members should hang on a minute and remember we have a law that states a person can be arrested if there is reasonable cause. That is a lesser test than that provided in this bill. Then we go to the issue that a person can be locked up before he or she is found guilty by a trial. The ACT party says we should not give people parole; it says they should be locked up even though they have not yet been found guilty in a court of law. Why is that? Mr Franks takes the extreme silly view: the sort of immature view that either it is all absolutely one position or—I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Mr Richard Prebble has been continuously interjecting and I think the Standing Orders prevent that. I was challenged by Mr Tanczos to go point by point through his speech. I allowed him to make his contribution without that sort of interjection. I ask to be given the same right that he had. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I take the point. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: The member said to the House that I should take another call. Of course the House knows that the ACT party has used its call. If the member directs personal remarks to me then of course I will reply. If the member would stop making such an inflammatory speech then of course—[ 
Interruption 
] The member is saying that people should be put in jail without court cases and he then expects members to sit in the Chamber quietly. Would any Parliament put up with that sort of rubbish? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Is not that contribution from Mr Prebble interesting? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I have to dispose of that point of order first. I will not take it any further. I thought that the volume of the speaker’s voice was so great that he was enjoying the debate—and I am sure he is. 
Nandor Tanczos 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I apologise to the member for interrupting his speech. I thought that now would be a good time to do so; I did not want to interrupt the member in mid-flow. I make the point that the pronunciation of my name is Tanczos. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I just want to make this point about Mr Prebble: he could not be bothered to get himself down to the Chamber to participate in any part of the Committee stage of this bill but he is happy to shout another member down. I say this House should be able to expect better than that. 
This Parliament has to be practical. Just as Parliament is practical when it comes to people who are charged with serious crimes and allows our police to lock them up until such time as they have a trial so we need to be practical in exactly the same way on this issue. That is why National supports those provisions of this bill. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Joe Stalin! 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Oh Stalin! Well let us hang on a moment while I ask—and this is the key point—whether it a great loss for a hoon to have his or her car locked up. Is that somehow Stalinist? Is that not interesting? I refer Mr Prebble to 5 November 1998 when we had the legislation that provides for the confiscation of people’s cars because a police officer on the side of the road has found out that they do not have a driver’s licence. That has not been proved in a court of law. Where were ACT members on 5 November 1998? They were in the Ayes lobby then; they thought that was a good idea. So I do not know what sort of principle the ACT party has now found that states it can accuse us of Stalinism. Is that what ACT was up to in 1998? 
Then we come to the big issue that was raised by Mr Tanczos about the loss of cars. Somehow that is a great crime. But let us hang on a moment because this bill states that someone can go to court the very next day and challenge the decision of the police by saying that they took that person’s car unfairly. The very next day he or she can go to court and challenge the police on that matter and I say that that is a sensible practical provision. That deals with that great injustice that the ACT party and the Green Party have made so much of. 
Then we are told that this bill is all about the media. Well was it the media that got 150 people out in Branford Park just over 9 months ago? Was that just because of the media? Maitai Valley in the Nelson region has a population of 200 and over 100 people turned out there for a public meeting because they have had a gutsful of their neat community being disrupted by those sorts of hoons. That was not a media creation but happened because the problems that hoons have caused are a real issue for the people of that small community. 
This legislation is a matter of balance in terms of relative rights. I say that the loss of a hoon’s car for 28 days is not as big a loss as the peace and quiet that communities should rightfully be able to have. I said earlier in my speech that there were matters of principle and consistency. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: We are waiting! 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I ask Mr Prebble again: how come he could not contribute in the Committee stage? 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I was here. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Why did the member not contribute? 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I did by interjection. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Oh that is the level of integrity that we have from the ACT party; Mr Prebble wants to pip-in pip-out but he cannot contribute to the debate. I ask which parties have been consistent? Do the Opposition parties just get up and oppose things for the sake of it? No National and New Zealand First voted for the legislation in 1998 that provided for the confiscation of cars. Where was the Labour Party including Martin Gallagher and Phil Goff? They were in the Noes lobby. We had speeches then from Labour MP after Labour MP running the sort of argument that we have heard from ACT about the purity of not taking cars off people. Why has Mr Gallagher changed his mind on that? Well those members throw their hands up in horror; they have no idea why they have changed their minds—no idea at all. I say again that at least the people of New Zealand can rely on consistency from the National Party which puts the argument of law and order ahead of other things. 
As part of the report back of this bill there was also the report back of a petition. I want to put on the record my thanks to Bob and Cathy Bowley from my own area who collected hundreds of submissions and who came to the Law and Order Committee hearing at their own expense to support this bill as part of getting a sensible change made in the law. 
The last point that has disturbed me relates to what some parties believe of our police. I have great confidence in the integrity of the men and women who serve in the New Zealand Police almost without exception—but they are human. I find the way the police conduct themselves to be one that every New Zealander can be proud of. I have seen those police officers—sympathetic to the views of my constituents who have their sleep disturbed night after night and who find their park ripped apart by hoons every weekend—struggle to try to deal with that. I have seen a huge amount of taxpayers’ resources disappear as the police try to contain that problem. The difference in this debate is between those who trust the police and those who do not. I trust the police. I believe that they will use the powers that this legislation provides responsibly to confiscate cars from hoons who do doughnuts squeal their wheels and ruin neighbourhoods and that they will ensure that the citizens who live in the neighbourhoods where that occurs have the right to live in peace.